It’s no stretch to say that I was raised on Pokemon. I was in fifth grade when Gold and Silver came out, and my brother and I received them respectively. Silver was amazing, because it was all the awesomeness of the first game with twice the length, and this time with some actual storyline going on behind the scenes, which was awesome. When Ruby and Sapphire came out I just couldn’t get into them, being as they had somehow gotten shorter again and the world and new Pokemon weren’t as interesting as before. In the years since R/S the only Pokemon game I played was Red, which I stopped playing when all of my friends got way the hell ahead of me and I started to lose interest. However, now they’ve remade my favorite game in the franchise, so it’s time to pick up Ye Olde DS and relive my childhood! And I’m blogging it because I finally have an excuse to blog Pokemon and be current!

Okay, so the first thing to note about SoulSilver is of course that this is a DS game, 2 whole generations ahead of the original, and as such nothing looks the way it used to, haha. It’s all 3D! It looks really nice. The towns have a whole new life to them that they didn’t have before. I think the funniest symbol of the generational shift was that my character’s room now has a Wii in it instead of a Super Famicom~ !

As per the modern games’ tradition, in addition to your normal rival (S/G always had the biggest asshole of all the rivals, so I named him “ASSCOCK,” as per classic tradition) you have a rival that is the opposite gender of your character. I ended up with the most hilariously hyperactive chick with a similarly hyperactive Maril whose speech so far has all basically equated to ‘ZOMG POKEMON WWWW.’ We haven’t fought yet, but it should be fun. Also I’m pretty sure I could find porn of her already if I looked.

Where would I begin with all the graphical touches and little fun things thrown in? When you open your pack, it is divided into a bunch of sections, and as you look through a section or ‘pocket’ there is an indication of which part of your backpack that pocket is located. Finally, we understand how he keeps his shit organized! Though I guess it doesn’t explain how one pocket can store 99 super potions or whatever lol. I like how important trainers will show up behind their Pokemon at some points during battle to shout encouragement and stuff. The Pokecenters have gotten uber high-tech; they even have a damn escalator going to the basement! I love the use of the touch-screen because I hate menu navigation. And you get cute things like being able to change the wallpaper on your Pokegear. This, my friends, is how you make an immersive video game!

So, anyway, onto the actual playing. I started off with Totodile, whom I named BOSS NIGGA, because he is the most badass of the starters, hands-down. I then went through the reason that I always hated starting new games in Pokemon Silver, which is the journey to Mr. Pokemon’s house and back. It’s annoying enough to have to walk it so many times, but you don’t get any damn Pokeballs to catch the little shits nibbling at your ankles in the grass. By the time I got my Pokeballs, BOSS NIGGA was already at level 10 and knew Water Gun and Rage (I can’t tell you how much I love to see the phrase “BOSS NIGGA’s rage is building up!”)

I haven't even tried this thing out yet, but my bro says it's cool He got HeartGold BTW.

So anyway, I next caught a female Hoothoot which I named FIZZBITCH. I remember once having a Noctowl in Silver which was the first time that my strongest Pokemon wasn’t my starter, and I was quite proud, so I hope FIZZBITCH will be a good addition to the team. Next I caught a female Rattata named ‘Old Nancy‘ whom I don’t intend to do much with. I’ve grown bored of Rattata after having one in my recent Red playthrough that would always die too easily, so this one’s just a straggler. I caught it at first thinking that I would be trying to catch all of the Pokemon available, but when I realized that you had to catch certain ones during the day, I blew out that plan.

Now, when I caught FIZZBITCH I found out something important. You see, all along, BOSS NIGGA’s sprite had been following me around where I went. As it turns out, whatever Pokemon is assigned as the head of your party will follow you around. As soon as I discovered this, my natural reaction was ‘I NEED AN ONIX’ for reasons that should be obvious if you are a human fucking being.

Well, check out my luck! In the first major town (which is lovely at night, by the way, with it’s array of soft lanterns illuminating it) some random guy was willing to trade me an Onix for a Bellsprout, and it so happened to be Bellsprout Season on Route 30. I quickly caught a Bellsprout named TRADEBAIT and then gave it up for an Onix that this NPC, obviously the biggest genius in the universe, had named ‘Rocky’. I knew instantly that I had found my party leader.

Unfortunately, the first place I had to go was Sprout Tower, wherein every damn enemy uses Bellsprout – about the last thing you want to face with a rock and water type leading your party. Luckily FIZZBITCH was there to make easy work of things, and I managed to catch a Ghastly named ‘Fuuko-chan’ (for obvioius reasons). Now it was time to take on the first gym leader, Faulkner!

Faulkner’s gym was awesome, because when you walk in, you step on this platform that suddenly flies upward, propelled by a mess of gears, up to the array of platforms suspended high above the ground for the bird-based gym’s battles. I can’t wait to see what the other gyms are like! Unfortunately I lost my first match to Faulkner’s god damn level 13 Pidgeotto thanks to my Pokemon being weakened by the other trainers and my being too damn stupid to buy potions. Leading to a tweet like this:

@2010digitalboy: FUCK I LOST TO FUCKING FAULKER BITCH ASS PIECE OF SHIT WITH HIS FUCKING LVL 13 PIDGEOTTO FUCK YOUR SHIT

But luckily, after a quick trip to the Pokecenter, I totally crushed him with Rocky singlehandedly, leading to tweets like this:

@2010digitalboy: YEAH HOW YOU LIKE THAT FAULKER THAT’S CALLED DEFEAT BITCH, THAT’S WHY YOU DON’T FUCK WITH ROCKY THE ONIX MOTHAFUCKAAAAAA

@2010digitalboy: ADRIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN

@Shinmaru: @2010digitalboy rofl ROCKY ROCKY ROCKY ROCKY ROCKY

@2010digitalboy: @Shinmaru I CAN CHANGE! YOU CAN CHANGE! ALL OF US CAN CHANGE!!!!

Anyway, you can tell I’m having fun, but the coolest thing that I can do by posting every so often on my progress is track the status of my team after each gym. So let’s have a look!

Rocky (Onix) lvl. 11 – Attacks: Rock Smash, Tackle, Rock Throw, Bind <- Current planned party leader.

BOSS NIGGA (Totodile) lvl. 11 – Attacks: Scratch, Leer, Water Gun, Rage <- Insanely overpowered backup plan.

FIZZBITCH (HootHoot) lvl. 9 – Attacks: Tackle, Growl, Peck, Hypnosis <- Combination of bird and psychic is very useful

Old Nancy (Rattata) lvl. 7 – Attacks: Tackle, Tail Whip, Quick Attack, Focus Energy <- Waiting to be replaced by something more awesome

Fuuko-chan (Ghastly) lvl. 5 – Attacks: Hypnosis, Lick, Spite <- Might try to train depending on how much of a pain in the ass it turns out to be

EGG <- It’s an egg.

I wish I could honestly say that there was no genre which I didn’t enjoy, but that is sadly not true. There are two genres that I am not a big fan of: political stories and mystery thrillers. It’s not that I outright dislike these genres – there are works from each of them that I enjoy, although none that have a chance of being one of my favorites. If I like them, it’s for reasons other than those that tie them to their genre. The reason that those two genres happen to be my least favorite is that I have a problem with what we call ‘plot’.

Anime has a clear reason for being my favorite medium of stories, and it is that anime has the most variety of ‘elements’ that go into it. I have a ranking scale for anime which goes like this – [((Story/10 X1 ) + (Characters/10 X2.5) + (Audio/Visual/10 X2.5) + (Meat/10 X2)) /8 (optional 1 or 2 bonus scores and division by 9 or 10 depending)] ‘Meat’ is basically a grade for directing, story-boarding, and other strange things that might separate an anime from others. What you’ll get from this grading scale is that ‘Story’ only accounts for 1/8 of what I look for in an anime. It’s all about the other elements.

For manga, my grading scale is [Story X1.5 + Characters X2.5 + Art X2.5 /6.5]. The reason that story gets a higher grade in manga is that manga has fewer total elements to consider. Whereas an anime has countless things accounted for in the ‘audio/visual’ and ‘meat’ categories, a manga is just simply those three. I imagine that in a novel review I’d just have [Story X1 + Characters X1 + I guess prose X1] But you get my point.

So what’s my beef with plot? Well, you’ve heard the phrase - it’s all been done before. I’ve seen enough anime and read enough manga that I can confidently say there is no such thing as a plot I haven’t seen before, in whatever form. It is impossible to come up with a plot that has never been done before – that is the law of creation.

The thing that prompted me to bring all of this up is the manga I just finished, 20th Century Boys, a 24-volume opus by the legendary Naoki Urusawa, author of Monster, Pluto, Yawara, etc. 20th Century Boys is certainly worth reading – I recommend it – but I also found it extremely disappointing, simply because it did what I never want to see a story do – it let ‘plot’ become the center of the story.

Early on, I was really enjoying 20th Century Boys as it opened up. The premise is genius – an evil cult springs up and begins to take over the world, based on plans that were dreamed up by a bunch of kids in the 70s, now adults, who are the only ones that can stop the terror that may devour the world. Surely, this is quite original, as far as ‘being original’ is possible. However, no matter how imaginative it is, the fact that remains that it is a mystery thriller story. No matter what trappings it is filtered through, it’s still not unlike something I’ve read before. Since I haven’t read that many manga mystery thrillers, I’ll just have to compare it to Death Note, which I have read. My problems with both manga are the same.

The mystery thriller genre is all about ’suspense’ and ‘reveal’. There is a buildup, and then suddenly a major event happens, and it’s a shock! I can’t believe that was the truth! When you read it, it is masterful. The first time I read Death Note, my heart would thunderously pound at the major reveals and shocking moments! 20th Century Boys took the shock to the next level with it’s crazy-ass plot! But what happens when you re-read Death Note?

I own the manga, so of course I’ve tried. The thing is, the setup for each reveal is now boring. I feel like ‘I know what is going to happen, so I don’t want to read several chapters of buildup.’ I begin to realize that Death Note without suspense doesn’t amount to much. It doesn’t have anything that compels me to pick it up again and re-tread all that set-up dialog again. I wanted hard for 20th Century Boys to dodge this bullet, because it showed so much potential.

There are some parts of 20th Century Boys that were definitively my favorites, and they were each time wherein a new, vitally important character was being introduced. When Otcho first appears, there are a ton of chapters about his story and his exploits in the Thai underworld which were totally awesome. Later, Kanna is introduced, and we see all kinds of cool stories about her amazing life in the hell that becomes the Kabuki district. Then there’s the introductions of Kiyoko and the manga-ka – all of these parts are about excellent character development, and what’s more, they give a meaning to the suspense.

I become desperate for Otcho to take down a bad guy, or for Kanna to win the ultimate bet, or for manga-ka to escape from prison, because I have been made to care about them so strongly, and I get tense and sweat when the action happens. All of these parts are in the first half or so of the 24-volume series – and from then on it went downhill for me, simply because the plot overtook the characters.

Naoki Urusawa is no doubt an excellent artist, but his art doesn’t have much in the way of ‘visual style.’ His art is a proponent to the story. It’s great that he can draw distinct, emotive characters, but they are the embodiments of their significance to the story. The world that he pens is all in the name of telling the story effectively, but there’s nothing more to it. Not like my recently-appointed all-time favorite manga Akira, for instance. Katsuhiro Otomo has such a style that at a mere glance, you can tell that it is his work. He creates a world with a life it’s own – a world that breathes, that shows that it’s existed long before the story began, and will continue to exist long after the story ends. His character designs not only have personality, but are also completely recognizable. To put what I mean simply, Maruo from 20th Century Boys is ‘the fat guy with hard luck but a heart of gold.’ Tetsuo from Akira is simply ‘Tetsuo.’ So understand that I think that 20th Century Boys has excellent artwork, but it cannot rely on it. If I took away the plot, I would not still have the art to go by. I could enjoy an artbook of Katsuhiro Otomo’s work, while Naoki Urusawa’s artwork is only good as an extension of the story.

iconic.

According to my grading scale, what I want from a manga has a bit to do with plot, a lot to do with art, and a lot to do with characters. If the art isn’t enough to sell me on the series, then the characters are now the most important thing.

Halfway through 20th Century Boys, the plot expositions and reveals go crazy. The character count keeps increasing, but new characters, even the ones who seem really interesting, aren’t given time to show their stuff. They may get a moment of glory briefly, and then fade into obscurity (the tattooed priests or the young glasses-wearing girl come to mind). Because so many characters are appearing and so many plot threads show up, things become jumbled. There are parts where many things seem to be happening, only for a major event to automatically tie-off multiple plot threads all at once. Because the plot always must continue, then many of the actions taken by characters become pointless. It doesn’t matter if a whole volume is spent gathering the information to shut down ‘Enemy plot A’ because ‘Enemy plot B’ is right around the corner. Everything that has happened before will always become meaningless in the face of the next adversary. The first time a character appears, then they would have been developed up until their point of becoming a part of the flow of events, but then the old characters don’t have a part to play. ‘Enemy plan Y’ isn’t going to make the 22 characters who are already fighting on the side of justice learn anything new about the world or themselves – they are already accustomed to this. At some point, it feels like the characters are just ‘going through the motions’. Honestly, the biggest suspension of belief for me in the story was that after so many years the story takes place in, the characters managed to keep the same mindset all the time.

By the end of 20th Century Boys, as it transitioned into 21st Century Boys for the last 2 volumes, I was just not interested anymore. I just wanted to see it all end, so that the characters could do something new. I was tired of the same rehashed sentiments and speeches – when would it end, so that the characters could move on with their lives? And when it ended, not to spoil anything, it mostly ended with the plot. We don’t get a bunch of stories on how each character would live on into the future and deal with the new world, but just some brief ‘they’re still alive’ sort of moments.

What this said to me was that the characters weren’t supposed to be the real meat of the story. It said to me that the characters existed because they were necessary to the plot, and not because they lived and functioned as people beyond the story. What mattered to me about Kanna was her awesome attitude, her problem-solving instincts, her ubiquitous sense of justice that was so much fun to watch. These things are shown to us because one day, Kanna will have to use each of these things to help her in various situations to further the plot, and as soon as she has done so, she is no longer important. Now it’s up to someone else to use the things we’ve learned to play out their role. Systematically, the plot is laid out this way.

Because the premise is interesting, and the characters were interesting at times, and the art was still good if not amazing, I wanted to really love 20th Century Boys. When I was about halfway through I thought ‘this will probably make it into my top 10 manga’ but when those things all became secondary to an increasingly heavy-handed and obtuse plot, I just gave up. 20th Century Boys could have either been half as long, with fewer incessant plot twists to tie the story up nicely and with less excess limbs, or been twice as long and taken time to honestly flesh out and develop the characters, and I would have loved it. Instead, it was one of the most disappointing things I think I’ve ever read.

And just in case you’re curious – Story – 7.5, Characters – 7, Art – 8. If those still seem like great scores for something so disappointing, just know that halfway through the story, I might have been prepared for something like ‘10, 9, 8′, and that I haven’t read very many things that disappointed me.

It’s no surprise at all to find that many people cannot stomach Texhnoolyze, most commonly by the reasoning that it is ‘boring’. I can’t blame anyone for thinking so – it’s an incredibly slow and ruthlessly dense experience, and written by Chiaki J. Konaka who never seems interested in letting anyone watch his shows easily. I, however, do not find Texhnolyze boring at all. ‘Boring’ would imply a certain indifference and disinterest – ‘boring’ would mean that I didn’t care. Rather, I really enjoy Texhnolyze and find it wholly interesting, but I would describe watching it as ‘physically painful.’

In the first DVD’s interview with Konaka and Yoshitoshi ABe, the two of them describe how the intent of these early episodes was to create a dark and grinding experience. It was to really sell you on the bleak, hopeless, and outright painful outlook of the series and it was not necessarily meant to be easy to watch (the first episode famously has 14 minutes pass before it’s first line of dialog, and then there is only a little bit in the whole ep.) I would certainly say that they succeeded in what they wanted to do, although I would less thank Konaka for that, and more thank ABe’s brilliant art coupled with Hirotsugu Hamazaki’s brilliant directing.

If you’ve never heard of Hirotsugu Hamazaki, it’s probably because his only show besides Texhnolyze was the even-less-known Shigurui, but both series teem with his style. Hamazaki’s MO is sensory brutality. There is no need for words with him, because he expresses things with bodies. We don’t need a monologue about Ichise’s pain, and the struggle of having lost an arm and a leg. We see him stumbling around, breaking his nose on the pavement as he falls, desperately clinging to keep himself alive, and the brutality by which he lives. Ichise spends a lot of episode 3 naked, just as the guys in Shigurui are often shirtless, so that we can understand the working of their bodies. We can understand how this man with one arm and one leg can summon the fury to refuse charity, or how he has the strength to at one point ram an operating table into the doctor who is trying to help him, get her on the ground, and get his hand around her neck. Clearly, he has no good reason to do so, other than the sheer malice and will that drives him.

In the first four episodes of Texhnolyze, almost nothing is explicitly stated in regards to the plot until we get an explanation of what Texhnolyze actually is in episode four. Instead, we are only given one man who comes down from the surface to this city for reasons that we do not understand, as well as a man who has his arm and leg cut off for reasons that, even if we aren’t told, we can figure out all too well.

Texhnolyze has no intent of giving the viewer more than that. This isn’t one of those series where things are strange because they have some philosophical meaning. It isn’t slow and hard to watch because the creators wanted to express some pretentious art-school urge – Texhnolyze has no meaning. It is simply a story, just like any other, and it so happens that the story is painful to watch. There is no ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ way to watch Texhnolyze. If someone doesn’t like it, it’s not because they are missing out on some deep meaning or seeing it at the ‘wrong angle’ – you get out of it exactly what it gives you. It is a dark, grinding, terrifying story wherein you might watch a man crawl on one arm and one leg in desperation, and the series doesn’t give you a reason to think that things would turn out okay for him. This isn’t the story of a man who gains super-powers because he was in the right place at the right time. The fact that he was granted advanced Texhnolyzed limbs on the whim of a scientist that the story calls the ‘Texhnophile’ does not alter the fate of what is to come.

The series only has one course to run. It will not change. I once explained the brutality of Texhnolyze by pointing out how in episode 11, halfway through the series, a girl who foresees the future tells the main character about the gruesome way that everything will end, and 11 episodes later, her precise prediction comes true. The physical pain caused by watching Texhnolyze comes from the fact that in order to enjoy it, one must endure it.

All too often, I see the phrase ‘animation’ getting tossed around without a proper knowledge of what the word entails. Although, for the record, I also see people talk about wanting to watch anime with ‘good graphics’ so at least most of us aren’t that bad, but nonetheless, I think a lot of people confuse a series having ‘good art’ with having ‘good animation.’ There are a lot of ways I could explain this with examples unrelated to one-another, but I think the more effective way to illustrate this is with Haibane Renmei and Texhnolyze – two shows with art designed by my favorite artist, Yoshitoshi ABe.

Yoshitoshi ABe is very popular, which comes as no surprise because he has a very striking and instantly recognizable visual style that pervades in all of his series (of which include Serial Experiments Lain, NieA_7, and the two we will be discussing.) Haibane and Texhnolyze are, from what I know, the series that he had the most involvement with the creation of the anime versions of, so both of them definitely have his touch on them.

To get it out of the way now, Haibane Renmei has very weak animation, whereas Texhnolyze has very strong animation. Haibane Renmei aired at the end of 2002, which is around the time that Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex, one of the best-looking anime ever produced, was airing. Texhnolyze aired about a year later, alongside the great-looking Last Exile and the terrible-looking Air Master – point being, the time difference between the two series has no bearing on why one looks better than the other.

Haibane’s lackluster animation can be easily attributed to it’s production by Radix studio, who haven’t really done any other productions on their own. To understand what makes Haibane’s animation bad, I point to a few of the things I noticed while watching the third episode. For instance, a moment where Kuu is running down a slope to meet up with Rakka, and the way she is running does not match the angle of the ground below her. The perspective is messed up so that she seems to grow taller rather than get closer as she runs, so the whole moment is confusingly ugly.

Another such moment comes when Hikari is walking across a rickety bridge to get to the place where the Haibane council is stationed, and to show that the bridge is safe to Rakka, she stands on one leg and spins around. However, the way that she does this looks as if her foot is not touching the bridge at all, but just levitating. In the next shot, the animators use a clever trick of showing Rakka pull Hikari across the bridge while it bounces along as an under-shot, meaning that they didn’t have to try and depict the characters’ legs as they would land on the wobbling bridge, which I imagine would be very hard to animate convincingly.

Amazing art won't save you from terribad animation

Probably the moment that got to me the most, though, was when Rakka enters Reki’s room at the start of the episode, and there is a camera zoom. I consider camera zooms to be the cardinal sin of animation. If you didn’t know, animation is done by taking pictures of still images and putting them in sequence. A camera zoom is when they take one still image and zoom in on the camera used to take a picture of the image to create an illusion of movement where there is none. This trick, however, does not work. It is the ugliest and most amateur trick that an animation team can use, and I about facepalmed when I saw it at use here.

In the series overall, though, the crappy animation isn’t as big of a hindrance as it would be to most anime. There are occasional moments of really brilliant animation (such as the emergence of Rakka’s wings in the first episode) which are no doubt do to the fact that studios like Production I.G. also had hands in the production of the series. And even when the animation is bad, it’s hard not to like looking at Haibane because, as mentioned, the art is so great. The character designs are a joy, the world is a delight. The background art is usually quite lively and interesting, and the world has a life to it that even some spectacularly animated shows don’t grasp.

However, that’s not to say that I can’t fault the series for the animation. Precisely because I have Texhnolyze. Admittedly, it might not be the hardest thing to never screw up the animation in Texhnolyze because it isn’t the most active series – not a whole lot regularly happens, but that said, everything there is looks great. Moments of action are astounding, and moments without action are still highly detailed. This is, after all, studio Madhouse, one of the most respected anime production studios there is. Not to say that everything they do is gold, but they do know what they are doing, and this is a series wherein they put a real effort into it.

Even the background art in Texhnolyze is, I daresay, much better than that of Haibane, as it honestly looks like Yoshitoshi ABe was drawing every still himself, and you’ll never have a moment of faulty perception or characters going off-model in the animation. It’s a damn sexy series, and because of that, I have to sort of look at Haibane and feel that, even if I love it, more could have been done to make it look nice.

art by r_kampfgruppe http://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=r_kampfgruppe

Heya, I doubt you remember it, but a little more than a year ago I posted on the first two episodes of Haibane Renmei and did a little special on it’s DVD bonus features. I actually watched 4 eps at the time, but my intent wasn’t episodic blogging and I hadn’t found anything in eps 3 and 4 to post about. Well, I’m making another rewatch attempt now, and I guess the year break was worthwhile since I’ve seen Inglourious Basterds in that time, and I found a little something to post about~ Though I will say, rewatching this is very difficult, because I did not remember the animation sucking so hard and I just got done rewatching Baccano, so I might stop and watch something else to ween myself down from that excellent-animation high. I digress.

In episode 3 of Haibane Renmei, there is a scene wherein Rakka is heading into town to buy some bread, and Kuu tags along. The whole time, Kuu is explaining how she wanted a sort of little sister to be the next to hatch from a cocoon, but in the end was glad that Rakka was older, lest she had been branded as one of the young feathers. She then turns to a little more sophisticated conversation at the site of an old man swatting at crows with a broom.

Kuu says (as translated by Geneon): “Kana calls the crows ’scavengers’, but I think they want to be friends with us. What is trash for us, is food for the crows, so I think they want to be friends with us and have us give them food. I became friends with the cafe owner because I’m a Haibane and can talk, and he gave me some sugar cubes. But since crows can only caw, and they are pitch black and scary looking, people won’t give theme crepes and Kana chases them with a broomstick. It doesn’t seem fair. I wish we could talk with them, don’t you?”

As I read this, I immediately thought back to the now-legendary opening scene of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, and to the most fragrantly beautiful piece of dialog from Col. Hans Landa A.K.A. ‘The Jew Hunter’. Luckily, Funeral owns the screenplay, so I can transcribe the segment for you here~

COL. LANDA The feature that makes me such an effective hunter of the Jews is, as opposed to most German soldiers, I can think like a Jew, where they can only think like a German or, more precisely, a German soldier. Now if one were to determine what attribute the German people share with a beast, it would be the cunning and predatory instinct of a hawk. Negroes-gorillas-brain-lips-smell-physical strength-penis size. But if one were to determine what attributes the Jews share with a beast, it would be that of the rat. Now the Fuhrer and Goebbels’s propaganda have said pretty much the same thing. Where our conclusions differ is I don’t consider the comparison an insult. Consider for a moment the world a rat lives in. It’s a hostile world indeed. If a rat were to scamper through your front door right now, would you greet it with hostility?

PERRIER I suppose I would.

COL. LANDA Has a rat ever done anything to you to create this animosity you feel toward them?

PERRIER Rats spread disease, they bite people-

COL. LANDA Unless some fool is stupid enough to try and handle a live one, rats don’t make it a practice of biting human beings. Rats were the cause of the bubonic plague, but that was some time ago. In all your born days, has a rat ever caused you to be sick a day in your life? I propose to you, any diease a rat could spread, a squirrel would equally carry. Yet I assume you don’t share the same animosity with squirrels that you do with rats, do you?

PERRIER No.

COL. LANDA Yet they are both rodents, are they not? And except for the fact that one has a big bushy tail, while the other has a long repugnant tail of rodent skin, they even rather look alike, don’t they?

PERRIER It is an interesting thought, Herr Colonel

COL. LANDA However, interesting as the thought may be, it makes not one bit of difference to how you feel. If a rat were to scamper through your door this very minute, whould you offer it a saucer of your delicious milk?

PERRIER Probably not.

COL. LANDA I didn’t think so. You don’t like them. You don’t really know why you don’t like them. All you know is, you find them repulsive.

Landa and Kuu have come to different conclusions about this, with Kuu having the more sunny standpoint of wishing the crows could be friends with humans, while Landa has more taken in stride the demonizing of rats. Nonetheless, the point stands, that both have observed this unfairness towards something that has really done no wrong, but is instinctively hated.

I think it’s interesting, too, what these speeches say about the individual characters. In both cases, there is this feeling carried that you are hearing something intelligent from an unexpected source. Kuu is the youngest of the Haibane, and acts the most whimsical, and yet, there is a sense in all of her conversations that she is thinking far more deeply than the others. If given thought, almost everything that Kuu says has a very analytical edge to it. For instance, as she and Rakka ride a bike together in this ep, Kuu makes a remark about how they really can fly if they put their mind to it (or something like that) which could be taken as the flighty, hopeful stance of a young, energetic kid or, minding Kuu’s serious facial expression as she says the line, a more deep and thought-out philosophy.

In the case of the Jew Hunter, it is easier to connect that he is saying something deep, because he puts it very eloquently, but one must reconcile it with the point he is actually making. This is a German soldier called ‘The Jew Hunter’ in WWII era France doing exactly what his title entails. What he is making us understand is a stance that allows him to determine where a Jew is hiding so that he can capture them (as he further goes into in the continued monologue.) Like with Kuu, there is that sort of surprise that this person, of all people, is telling you something that could change your perspective in their direction.

art by hoppege http://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=hoppege

Tonight I argued with my mum while making dinner (don’t worry, it’s like a sport for us) about butlers. I had remembered reading somewhere that Butlers were the head chef in a household as well as chief of staff. My mom refuted this as ‘bullshit’ because she had evidently grown up with TV shows about butlers and thought that she knew them better. Well, I know how inaccurate US TV shows from the 70s are, and I was pretty sure that my precious manga authors knew a lot more, so I, too, was confident. (Of course, I could not find any information online regarding butlers being chefs, so I guess I lose. I’m sure someone with a ridiculous knowledge of butlers will comment with the answer.) But after the debate, I had to ask myself – since when was I so defensive about butlers?!

Well, obviously anime did it. Anime has done a lot to make butlers and maids fucking awesome. Kuroshitsuji is about a butler with the powers of hell on his side. Hayate the Combat Butler <- that was a statement. Sure Ladies Vs. Butlers doesn’t do a whole lot for their case, but the point is that there are a lot of fucking butlers in anime. And what’s more, these stories tend to be written by people who are obviously big fans of butlers, as they glorify the hell out of the profession, using exposition points to correct misconceptions about their duties and make it look like the profession is nothing short of secret ops work.

And don’t get me started on maids. Maids are more of a fetish thing in anime, more amazing not for their expertise in pouring tea during mortal combat as for they expertise in giving a fantastic blow-job while covered in the drinks they just tripped and spilled all over themselves, but nonetheless, it is glorified. And not all maids are an S&M moe fantasy, because some of them are ex-military warriors who can catch up to, latch onto, and demolish a moving car before being blown up AND SURVIVING.

I wonder if the obsession with butlers and maids is part of the mystique of the rich. The idea that a rich person’s right-hand-man should be the most amazing person alive, or that to work in an exorbitant mansion, you must be able to give a serious blow-job. Or maybe it’s just the usual power fantasy, or even just the sweeter side of a romantic ideal of people who do everything for you. Of course, it could just be those damn sexy uniforms. Maid outfits have that classic look of lolita fancy with a striking black and white design and butlers… well, ZZ Top put it best.

Every girl's crazy 'bout 'im.

Whatever it may be, butlers and maids have become integral to modern anime, it seems. Their presence is not even blinked at. When a maid or at least a maid cosplay shows up in some anime, it never strikes me as out-of-place, but rather expected. I know it must be widespread, because even my younger brother has a maid fetish, and he’s not really a man of fetishes. I realize now that my perception of maids and butlers have been totally skewed by anime. If I tried to discuss anything related to maids or butlers with a normal person, I don’t even think our imaginations would slightly match up. they’d be thinking ‘dirty servant’, while I’d be thinking ’sexy badass.’

How do you feel about maids and butlers? Been swept up in the craze yet?

—

(All of my post titles are references to Hayate the Combat Butler, but this one is actually a direct copy of the chapter title ‘Night of the Servants’ from book 2)

(This is another post I kind of tried to do in the style of my Honey-Bunny. Yes, I’ve settled on that name.)

Truly this gif is a symbol of peace.

What is this Holy War? This is wrong, my friends. Big boobs versus small boobs? No. Don’t be silly. Boobs are not meant to fight. Boobs are not meant for wrong. Boobs are meant to be loved. Boobs are meant to be a symbol of peace. Big boobs, small boobs, it doesn’t matter. Boobs are togetherness. Everyone loves boobs. Babies, children, teenagers, adults, elderly, men, women, EVERYONE loves boobs. Do not tear this apart. Do not make this another one of your fucking wars. When can you all appreciate peace? When will you realize that you are just tearing apart one of your safe havens of love?

Do not make a war out of boobs. Make love out of boobs. Live and let love different boob types. There is no reason that big boob and small boob lovers can’t get along. We all agree that boobs are amazing, so why tear ourselves apart? Where will we go next if we let this continue? If one side wins, what will be next, the Sideboob versus Underboob war? the Areola versus Nipple war? We cannot let this continue. MY BROTHERS! STOP THIS SENSELESS VIOLENCE! COME TOGETHER WITH ONE LOVE FOR ALL BOOBS!

Small boobs! (art by takara http://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=takara)

Big Boobs! (art by Kusaka http://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=kusaka)

In-between boobs! (art by mota http://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=mota)

All is right with the world.

Even 3D women have nice boobs! I like the ones on Yua Aida.

My favorite big-breasted character is Kallen. I'm willing to go a few sizes past my limit for you... but not as many as most of the people who draw you are lol (art by blade http://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=blade_%28artist%29)

Milky boobs are good too~ (art by sayappa http://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=sayappa)

Hey MetalSonic700 wrote a story about these boobs! (http://suspendedanimationdreams.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/imagos-esoterikos-hanzaki-jiro-art-woman-in-jacket-beneath-hot-sun-nsfw/) (art by Hanzaki Jiro http://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=hanzaki_jiro)

Obtain the boobies! (art by naporu http://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=naporu)

Oh god yes. (art by Hisashi http://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=hisashi)

You may take me. (art by Mogami Rio http://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=mogami_rio)

Remilia likes how blood tastes on boobs. I'm with her. (art by manekinukotei http://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=manekinukotei)

Truly, interest in boobs begins at a young age. (art by Sekihan http://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=sekihan)

...and it never goes away. (art by pota http://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=pota)

God I love boobs.

Art by Matsui Celine http://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=matsui_celine

Oh man, where do I even start with The Sky Crawlers? I’ve watched this incredible movie thrice, and it is long and by far one of my favorite anime films ever made. Every time I rewatch it, my perception of every event is entirely different. No, the movie hasn’t changed, and what I know of it hasn’t changed, but it’s simply grown. Just as I only ‘liked’ the movie the first time, ‘loved’ it the second, and ‘adored’ it the third, I similarly was only coming to terms with it the first time, understanding it the second time, and analyzing it the third. I think that having seen this movie three times, I can’t even remember what it was like to have only seen it once… and maybe that’s quite representative of the nature of my relationship to the actual plot of the film.

Moreover, I do not feel that The Sky Crawlers is a movie that I have merely ‘watched three times’ – I feel as though my experience with it, and it’s effect on me, transcends merely viewing it. The movie is more than the movie itself. I have done a lot of ‘research’ on this films, in the way I think of such. I know all about the director Mamoru Oshii – I’ve seen most of his works, and I ‘get’ him. I get the things that he would want me to get from his movie. I’ve watched all of the bonus features, interviews, behind the scenes stuff that came on the blu-ray DVD (if you can find any way to get your hands on this stuff, DO SO. Hours of extremely informative and amazing videos!) I’ve read about the original novel, and it’s relationship to the anime. (Supposedly, the author thought there was no way any kind of movie could be made out of it… but as soon as it became that Mamoru Oshii was making the film, he knew it would work. Likewise, Oshii was apparently very keen on being able to make this film.) And of course, I’ve done the ‘research’ of simply watching the movie until I knew it by heart. To where I can recall all of the images, the dialog, the reactions and meanings and subtext… I feel as though I have my brain around the film.

So know that I am very ’sure’ of myself when I talk about this movie. I am writing as though everything I say is fact, because from my perspective, it is. I also apologize if this makes my writing about this movie confusing, as I may be inclined to under-explain what makes me feel a certain way about things.

The Sky Crawlers is a movie about hopeless youth, and ultimately about finding a reason to… well, not die. Or at least not try to. It is not a movie with a clear-cut idea of what a person should do in life, just some different paths. Some different ways that people will deal with death, and some different ways that those people could deal with them a little better, just by finding a sparking reason.

Like many great stories with a message that applies to the real world, the so-called ‘world’ of The Sky Crawlers is no different from our own. It uses a flavoring of fiction to deliver the idea that it is, in fact, another world, but the inner workings are all the same. It’s only the face of things that is different. The Kildren who will never grow old are just our youth who never ‘mature’. The movie takes elements of our world and simply ‘officializes’ them so that they have more impact. In our world, war is like a game. In it’s world, war IS a game. In our world, our lost youth smoke, drink, party, have sex, and don’t generally give a fuck. In it’s world, that is legal and expected. In our world, people are just trying to find a way to keep going, with the threat of everything of death’s umbrella hanging over. In it’s world, that death is simply more apparent.

History repeats itself. Moments repeat themselves. In the Sky Crawlers, a dead soldier is replaced by a clone with the same tics and the same appearance, with most of the same personality. It’s not so different from us. When you strip people down to the bare bones of their personalities, there are only so many given archetypes to be born out of any one culture. The 202 is made up of a fun-loving party guy, a cynical thinker, a laid-back untalkative guy, a troubled woman, a normal woman, and one cool romantic. I don’t think it’s hard to find one to relate to. Mine is the main character, Kannami Yuichi, right down to his taste in women.

One thing every person who lives a full life must come to terms with is the fact of death. Some would say that the time that you realize the approach of death is the time that you truly become ‘mature’. Maybe that’s why people who go through traumatic experiences as children ‘mature’ faster. Depending on how you define ‘maturity’. Maybe you are ‘mature’ when you decide, in recognition of your death, that you will do as you please to enjoy your life while it lasts. Is it mature to spend your days smoking and drinking, partying, having sex, carrying on, and not really caring what happens to you? Or is that actually true childhood? The Kildren will crack open a Green Label and explain that they are still children in the same moment.

What is one to do when they become aware of death? Many would probably try to push it to the back of their minds, and pretend like it would never really happen to them. The Kildren can’t do this. They are fighter pilots in a never-ending war. They know that they are going to die, and that it will happen soon. There is absolutely no reason for them to live in fear of death and to pretend that a future always exists for them. So what do you do? You try to enjoy it. And what happens when it becomes too painful to do that? You try to end it sooner.

Kusanagi Suito becomes fed up with life. Why does she keep living, inciting hope, when death is just waiting for her around the corner? Why does she have to have a daughter, and to have to love her, when she knows that she will die before she can raise her fully? Why does she have to feel the pain of her loved ones dying if she has no other reason to live? Of course, I’ve felt the same way constantly. Kusanagi has a gun to point at herself. She has an undefeatable enemy she can throw herself at in hopes of being killed. She only lives because no human being has the power to kill themselves. It is against their base instincts. That’s why she runs towards every opportunity to let someone else do it for her. I would do the same. If I had a real enemy, or a real lover, who could end my life for me, I would beg them to do it. But I’m not like Kusanagi. Somehow, I’m more like Yuichi.

Because there is another way to live on with death in mind. It’s to grin and bear it. To face that insurmountable foe without fear, in hopes of breaking it. In hopes of destroying the circle. In hopes of finding ‘life’. The truth is, there is no breaking it. The world never changes. Yuichi fights Teacher at the end of the movie, and he gets shot down. But he went down swinging. In hopes of protecting the woman he loves – in hopes of finding a future for the daughter of his former self – that was the greatest happiness. Even if the world ends tomorrow, if you can find something to hold on to, you can enjoy yourself enough to live until then.

That is the ultimate message of The Sky Crawlers. In the end, Kusanagi decides not to die. She decides to love her daughter, to take care of herself, to embrace the future, even if it will only last briefly. It is not a decision to ‘live’. No one can make that decision, because it is not an available option. You are going to die. It’s only a matter of what you try to bring yourself to do until then.

Is The Sky Crawlers saying that this is the right way to live? I don’t think so. Yuichi wanted it of Kusanagi. It’s something that I want out of people. It’s why, even though I am so often on the brink of suicide, I can still enjoy people, and still wish them to live and to succeed. And it’s why I can still be so sure of myself. It’s why even though I know I am going to die, I also truly feel that I am going to do so much before the time comes. Am I making the right choice? Is it really true that this suffering will be worth anything? Probably not. I think that the actual ‘adults’ in The Sky Crawlers are always asking the same, and that’s why they just watch the Kildren without saying a word.

Maybe I would be better off just killing myself right now. But because of my personality, I just can’t do that. I’ll just have to keep on pushing through the pain. If I had someone like Kusanagi in my life, maybe I really would make it, and could really take on that final opponent like Yuichi does. As it stands, the only thing pulling me through are anime like this, and people like you.

-

The title of this post was taken from the lyrics to ‘Go With the Flow‘ by Queens of the Stone Age, which is pretty much about the same thing as this movie.

(NOTE: It is suggested that you take your time in viewing this and do not rush it, for best results. PROTIP: Imagine your own sound effects!)

Producer/Creator/Director/Cameraman/10 Years in Microsoft Paint: 21st Century Digital Boy

Master of Poses: Victo of the 4th Desert

I’m sure that you can guess that we had a LOT of fun making this. My brother Victo and I have been posing and making fight scenes with every manor of action figure since we were tiny, and we haven’t really mentally matured much since then, hehe. In the future I plan to take on a full stop-motion project utilizing figmas and the hundreds of other random-ass action figures we possess, but this is our fun bit for now. It took us all damn day to make, myself having put around 12 straight hours into the project, but it was well worth it. The most fun parts for me were those involving Yutaka who looked brilliantly sadistic, and Victo liked making the girls jump as well as the final battle between his favorite mech and Kagamiku whom he insisted was a magical girl.

As for comments on how it turned out, firstly the quality of any pose is negatively proportional to how much of a pain in the ass the figure was (Konata and Nivash typeZERO taking the cake as ‘huge pains in the ass’.) The pictures all looked better before they made it to the computer LOL. But seriously, we had three damn lamps on those bitches and it still looks like that. I knew we should have created a lightbox, damn it. I worry that the format of just dumping 60 images into a post is too messy, and the images ended up being just small and dark enough to where it’s hard to make out what’s going on LOL. But I really, really like the general idea of just 60 images stacked on-top of each-other, and what is this project but something I like? hehehe.

Anyways, thanks a lot of viewing this thing! I’m sure it wasn’t easy!

(INB4 every imaginable reply)

(Is there any movie that stoners WON’T synch Tool albums to? Although this scene is a perfect representation of the lyrics, haha)

I added a J-list ad. I like J-list, even though their site design is terrible and I’ve never bought anything from them, but I’ve always felt that if I had ridiculous amounts of money to spend on totally random shit, I’d go there. I also like that they let me choose basically what the ad looks like, and I picked the one most suited for this site. This ad most likely will not bother you, because most of my readers follow me through Google Reader and shit anyway. The ad is unobtrusive and not visible when you first open the page. Your ad-blockers probably won’t work on it, as J-list ads always show up for me. I’m just telling you about it as a heads-up, because I feel I should let my readers know about any way my site would possibly be receiving money.

Now, on to the inevitable whispers of me selling out. I don’t need to even say anything. Tool put it perfectly back in the 90s with their track in reaction to such claims, Hooker With A Penis. It’s directed at a certain boy who claimed that they were ’sucking up to the man’ and selling out.

“Well, now I’ve got some advice for you little buddy – before you point your finger you should know that I’m the man! I’m the man and you’re the man and he’s the man as well, so you can point that fucking finger up your ass! All you know about me is what I sold ya, dumb fuck, I sold out long before you ever even heard my name, I sold my soul to make a record, dipshit, AND THEN YOU BOUGHT ONE! All you read and hear and see on TV is a product rated for your fatass dirty dollar, so shut up and BUY MY RECORD! FUCK YOU BUDDY!”

And that’s how I feel about it. The only reason I never put up a J-List ad before is because I thought that they contacted you about it. I finally asked someone, and when I found out I could do it, I jumped on it. Making money off of doing what I love? Fuck yes, please! I’ll take any fucking endorsement deal you throw my way. Just take note: I’ll never do it in a way that I don’t like. You can ask Netprice Japan about that. Oh, and by the way, Netprice Japan agreed to send me 10 bucks. FUCK YEAH!

EDIT: Changed the ad, because the other one had Yume Miru Kusuri in it. I like this one a lot more because it has Reimu on it. As well as ‘Futanari Cat Girl Visual Novel’ (I’m tempted myself)