ricketyclick

OK, I’m easily amused:
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[Animated gif images behind spoiler tags in an attempt to get them to play from the start when you click the spoiler. Didn't work for me, so you may see the punch line before the setup. Sorry.]

I despair of explaining the situation here. Either you recognize the characters from Azumanga Dao, in which case you are laughing hysterically, or you don’t, in which case you are questioning my taste and sanity.

I occasionally enjoy relaxing with stories told through the Japanese animation style known as anime.

There are at least two reasons.

Oh, and then there’s anime’s notoriously strict adherence to the laws of physics.

[Warning: contains earworm. You are cheating yourself if you don't wait for the charming Japanese singing.]

I do so dearly love living in the future.

Give this at least thirty seconds:

From Ambient Irony. As Steven Den Beste says in comments, watch her shadow.

The earworm is “Caramelldansen“, which was a popular anime video meme awhile back. I think it’s a Swedish song with a Japanese accent. The girl is Hatsune Miku, a kind of mascot for the Vocaloid voice synthesizer, which is what’s actually singing.

[update]
OK, I was a little confused. The singing in the above video is the original live recording, played at high speed for amusing effect (this is known as the “speedycake remix”). Here is a video of Miku herself singing the song, plus you get a better look at her. If you do not following computer animation technology, you need to know that Miku is animated automatically, real-time, according to a script. The above video, which incorporates her into a real scene, adds a whole ‘nother layer of computing awesomeness to the mix.

You should also see this video response to the 3-d Miku video, which is musically boring, but does involve a leek, which refers to an earlier Nordic earworm video. Again, this is happening in real-time, in response to actions in the real world.

[more updates]

Here’s the lyrics, translated.

Here’s the lyrics, misheard. More misheard lyrics.

OK, I have to go do real things now.

[one last update. I swear.]

Here’s Caramelldansen at normal speed.

This will make no sense if you are not an anime fan, so below the fold it goes:
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As always, this post will make no sense if you are not following the Denno Coil anime series, currently in fansub.

Spoiler below the fold.

Speculation: Amasawa Yuko always reacts indignantly when people call her by her nickname, Isako. While I’ve attributed it to her not liking the implied familiarity, which is rather a big deal in Japanese etiquette, I’ve wondered at the strength of her indignation. Then I saw this.

At about 06:45, Tamako, Ken’s biker aunt, is spying on Yasako and Amasawa at the school assembly. She notes Yasako is her boss’ daughter.

“And the other one….” She scans over to Amasawa. Her eyes widen, and she gasps. She zooms in…closer…closer:
(more…)

Over at Kineska, I comment on possible outcomes of the anime based on Shakespeare’s tragedy.

This will not make sense if you are not watching the series, currently on TV in Japan, and in fansub here in the U.S, plus it contains spoilers and speculation, and includes an atrocious pun, so it’s below the fold: (more…)

Episode three doesn’t require much comment. The technical details are becoming routine, and beginning to fade into the background. From now on, I expect, we will begin to concentrate on the characters and the story.

01:25 “According to rumors in the industry, there are some hidden functions in the glasses that are better left unmentioned.”

01:40 Cyberglasses have been around for eleven years.

10:57 Two satchii’s viewed by “mojo 3 cam” and “mojo 6 cam”. Of course, the mojos aren’t real at all, and carry no cameras. They generate a virtual view, and impose it a database of street-level images. But if this is true, the “mojo cam” views may not reflect current physical reality.

12:28 Satchii-vision of shrine-space; it’s a black wall inscribed with something about “jurisdiction”

16:30 “In normal space, the illegals disintegrate immediately.” Do the illegals exploit some hole in the obsolete space, since patched with a later version?

19:16 More Satchii-vision. “…cyberspace not under the jurisdiction…” can’t read the rest.

===
From Anipages Daily:

I also wonder what the secret is to repeat-watchability. I can watch these episodes over and over again and they don’t get old, which is rare…. I think the answer is pretty simple. A solid work of art can withstand viewing from any angle over any length of time…. In this case, another thing that makes this world so appealing and keeps it fresh every time you watch is, I’m starting to think, that Iso seems to tap that way children live in the real world and in their own fantasy world at the same time, and tells the story without any cynicism or modern ambivalence. The show feels in a way like a throwback to an older time, to shows from a few decades back.

A few comments on Ep. 2; I’ve only had the chance to watch it once; I expect to post more after wasting my entire weekend in obsessive study a re-watch or two.

Seymour has the usual spoilers:
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I’m currently watching Darker than Black and Coil, two Japanese animated TV shows (aka “anime) available here in the U.S. as file shares translated and subtitled by fans.(”fansubs”).

I’ve watched each episode of Black, a dark tale of enslaved paranormals, and although it’s a good show of its kind, one viewing is enough. (There are six episodes as of this writing.)

I’ve watched the one available episode of Coil, a lighted hearted show with dark undercurrents, about six times now, and there’s things in it that still make me giggle.

I have not been so captivated since Fred Gallagher over at Megatokyo seduced me into anime with a picture of a rather shabbily dressed angel sitting on a terrace smoking a cigarette. Every anime I’ve watched since has basically been filler while I waited for the Next Haibane Renmei. This might be it, at least in terms of characters and world building.

Seymour has spoilerific random thoughts, which will probably make no sense unless you’ve watched the episode. See links at the end for reviews and other resources.
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Strong Female Characters
Shamus:

Lots of movies have trouble coming up with a strong female character who isn’t just a short man with no personality. The example cited in the post was that of Abigail Whistler in the third Blade movie. She’s my favorite example of a hackneyed “strong female character” who emphasizes “strong” at the expense of “female” and “character”.

Although this article is mostly about “strength” in terms of character definition, many of the comments also point to problems with the way physical strength is often handled. It is a simple fact that, on average, women are not as big and strong as men. There’s a reason most sports are divided into men’s and women’s division, even in as scrupulously egalitarian a venue as the Olympics and even in a non-contact sport like tennis. (Notable exception: Target shooting.)

And yet, many TV shows, movies, and anime show relatively small, lightly built women beating the bloody crap out of large, heavily muscled, trained men in hand-to-hand combat.

I deem this to be not only in violation of my suspension of disbelief, but actively dangerous in the real world, because it gives real girls and women utterly unrealistic expectations about their ability to defend themselves.

Also, see the article Shamus links to over at Bob’s Head. Regrettably, Bob doesn’t link to individual articles, so you’ll have to find the entry for Sunday 18 March 2007 (still on the front page as I write this).

Another, seen more often in serious mainstream dramas, but also seen in some genre fiction as well, is more insidious, and often gets to me worse than the Street Fighter Strong Woman model. There is apparently a belief that to be ’strong’, women must be confrontational, abrasive, and just generally no fun to be around. Thing is, this is just the emotional equivalent of the earlier problem - instead of beating people up with fists, these are women who beat people up with socially unacceptable behavior.

Another line path to failure is the a character who is of such density of skull that even repeated self injury does not change their basic assumptions about the universe. These are often angst ridden characters who have no real ability to deal productively with crisis, yet are labelled strong. This is often combined with ‘Physically Strong’ and called a ’strong woman’. The worst recent example I can think of this is Anita Blake. I have also seen it combined with ‘Emotionally abusive’, which winds up with the worst of all worlds, an abusive person with no real redeeming characteristics who is then posited as a role model.

Some observations of the behavioural patterns of Japanese and English-speaking anime fans

• English-speaking fans tend to approach an anime series through the application of reason and logic. Japanese fans tend to approach an anime series through the application of emotion and feeling.
• Research on topics like historic background, mythical symbolism are more common with English-speaking fans. If something is unclear, the tendency among English-speaking fans is to look it up, write it up and serve it up, whereas the tendency among Japanese fans is to let it pass.
• You may call it the Rational Western Mind at work: on top of research, English-speaking fans like to take a body of details and develop theories of how these details are connected. After gathering the who, when, what, where and how, English-speaking fans want to know the why. I must say - although I frequent Japanese and Chinese fandoms as well, the most interesting analysis I have ever read all come from English-speaking fans.
• The creative genius of English-speaking fandom lies in identifying and decoding of the elements of an anime. The creative genius of the Japanese fandom lies in fanart.

Via Beware the Kawaii.

Dammit, there’s another article I can’t find about anime studios being sweatshops. And not just for the animators, but the voice-acting talent. I’ll keep looking.