Posted by Skrud at Monday, November 29th 2004 at 6:35pm
I haven’t blogged about anime in a while. So I’m overdue. You may have read about Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien before when I blogged about it. You may also know that it is one of my all time favourite anime series: dramatic, depressing and entertaining all at once. I was also on the verge of total insanity waiting for the last episode to come out. The series kept me unbelievably hooked despite the romantic/tragic subject matter. And before you go all calling me a girl and stuff, KimiNozo is based on an H-Game. A really popular H-Game that has had novels and spin-offs and all-ages non-sexual versions produced, but that’s besides the point. It’s main target is definitely the male audience. (By the way, the fact that my computer’s hostname is “mitsuki” is because she is named after a character in this show.) In fact my main motivation for wanting to learn Japanese to a workable level was to play through the KimiNozo and Akane Maniax games.The genre is closer to Seinen than anything else. Either way I highly recommend it… but back to the point…
There has a been a spinoff series in the making, based off the spinoff game, Akane Maniax. Why a spinoff game? Well Akane is one character in the original KimiNozo series that became unbelievably popular for no real reason. She’s not a main character, she’s just everyone’s favourite character. She’s totally awesome, and her popularity reached the point where an entire spinoff game was made. To my great joy the spinoff game was made into a spinoff series, which was released in Japan on DVD starting this week. And the fansub came out today (by the great and wonderful people of Lunar Fansubs whose subs of KimiNozo are still my favourite). And the theme song is done by Kuribayashi Minami, who happens to be my favourite JPop singer…
So needless to say I had sshed into my computer at home to have BitTorrent grab the first episode of the OAV so that I could watch it as soon as I get home. Oh yeah. :)
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Posted by Skrud at Monday, January 26th 2004 at 6:40pm
This week I had an opportunity to talk to Vlad, the drummer of my would-be band, assuming we’ll ever find the time to practice. This is an event that is unfortunately becoming increasingly rare. Anyway, Vlad and I share a common foundation in both heavy metal music and Japanese anime (indeed, we met at Champlain College’s Anime club) so our discussions tend to revolve around those media. On interesting thing about this recent conversation though is that Vlad asked to see my playlist (recreated for your perusal). So I figured I’d take the time to write into the Great Void (i.e., the Internet) on my current musical tastes.
First thing’s first, I’m a born and bred metalhead. There is nothing more pleasing to my ears than the “sweet sound of a guitar played loud,” (as HardRadio would put it). But at the same time, I’ve found the current state of heavy metal to be lacking. There have been so few new releases worth listening to and it seems that the new stuff that comes out is just getting worse and worse, much like mainstream music. At first this led to my tastes burrowing downwards and back in time. As new music got worse, I would discover old music that would be infinitely better: Rush, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest… And that satisfied me for a time. (And they still do). But eventually I needed something new… something different.
In the meantime, my intake of Japanese anime has exponentially increased over the past 2 years as I discovered from Champlain’s anime club that “Hey! There’s so much more of this stuff out there!”. And something happens when you watch some 26 episodes of a series…. listening to the same theme song over and over again: It gets stuck in your head. The first Anime soundtrack I listened to was for Outlaw Star. The theme song is an incredible hard rock number, and the rest of the music in the show is very much guitar oriented. After that I discovered the jazzy Cowboy Bebop soundtrack, rife with trumpets and saxophones galore. At this point my musical tastes took an unexpected shift. After watching tons of anime, I started listening to as many Anime soundtracks.
.hack//SIGN is a series that’s more about the soundtrack than anything else with the music providing most of the mood and even more insight into storyline. The entire experience of watching is actually enhanced by the music, instead of merely supplemented by it. I think it’s the first time I ever actually thought of the soundtrack as being an integral part of the show, and less “background”. A good anime series leaves nothing to waste, and if something is there then you can bet it’s there for a reason (a lot like an artsy English novel). More and more, I’ve been opening my ears to the role that a soundtrack can play in a series. Saishuuheiki Kanojo is a prime example of the type of synergy music and animation can have in a well-constructed series. Serial Experiments Lain (mentioned an infinite amount of times in the forums…) is another example of how the eerie guitariffic (new word!) emanations can guide one’s senses to madess. Sometimes, for a particularly emotional series like Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien, the music associates itself with whatever is going through your head as you watch, at least for me. As a result, I have horded all the KimiNozo soundtracks I could find, and am desperately awaiting the release of the next KimiNozo Portrait Album: Daikuuji Ayu. (So far the three that have been released are: Suzumiuya Haruka, Hayase Mitsuki, and Suzumiya Akane). Also it helps that the music is completely awesome.
In any case, all these new sounds are slowly working their way into my subconcious where I someday hope to meld their influences with that of heavy metal to create something completely unique. Writing music, for me, is a difficult endeavor that often yields derivative crap that just sounds boring. I’d like to take these unique offerings from the Asian world and draft them into some hard and heavy metal. I think I have my work cut out for me.
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Posted by Skrud at Monday, January 5th 2004 at 1:07am
That was incredible. An excellent last episode. I highly reccomend this series to anyone capable of watching really sad, depressing animes. Remember, this game is based on a Dating Sim game, therefore it has to have ridiculously complicated and fucked up situations that will make you cry. If you enjoyed Kanon, then you’ll probably like KimiNozo as well. Although Kanon is still unlicensed in North America which makes me wonder if KimiNozo will ever get picked up. It’s possible that companies don’t think that this genre of anime has a market in North America… (and they’re probably not entirely mistaken). However the 3000+ people that were attached to the bit torrent link for the final episode within the first five hours of its release suggest that there is a substantial group of English speakers with interest…. The shows that do get licensed though are usually the more shoujo (male oriented) ones, however. And this includes all the action and sci-fi series, as well as most of the comedies such as Love Hina and Chobits. (While many people seem to think that the “love” elements qualify them as Shoujo, or girly, anime, they are not.).
Similarly, the games that these particular series are based on don’t seem to be getting licensed either. Granted, this may be due to the “H-Content” (“H” is for Hentai) that is found in these types of games, which I can understand as a deterrent for importing them. Yet I should point out that many, many H-Games have been translated into English and licensed and released in North America, many of which are much more “dirty” than either Kanon or KimiNozo ever could be. In fact, both Kanon and Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien have all-ages versions with the small amounts of H-content completely removed from them, focusing only on the storyline. This is because the stories themselves are so enthralling that they will simple captivate any watcher/player and can be appreciated without the Hentai content that may have deterred people from playing the original version.
Furthermore, I want to thank the creators of Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien for including the characters of Daikuuji and MayuMayu for their comic relief, without whom the series would have been far too depressing. Their antics following the credits of each episode (and if you missed them, GO BACK AND WATCH EM ALL OVER AGAIN) are a great way to cheer you up after whatever happened in the series… not to mention the way they act normally as characters on the show… ;)
Now I’d love to play the KimiNozo game… if only I could read Japanese. (I’m working on it… Slime Forest Adventure, here I come).
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Posted by Skrud at Sunday, January 4th 2004 at 10:10pm
Woohoo! Lunar Anime (fansubbing group) has finally released the final episode of Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien. Now I can finally get some peace of mind! On a related Anime note, Full Metal Panic kicks ass. I highly recommend it to anyone, especially if they liked Outlaw Star.
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Posted by Skrud at Sunday, January 4th 2004 at 12:11am
I always knew this anime existed, and many people have told that it was awesome, but until now I never even bothered trying to watch Full Metal Panic. Big mistake. Seven episodes straight now and I can say with confidence that Full Metal Panic kicks ass. Strange though, I never thought I’d get into the whole Mecha (aka Giant Robot) thing. But shows like Neon Genesis: Evangelion and even Scrapped Princess went quite a way in making me warm up to the idea of giant robots battling each other. I’m not entirely sure just how exceptional Full Metal Panic is as of yet, but rest assured it is one of the most purely entertaining animes I’ve seen since Scrapped Princess.
In other anime-related Skrudness, I finished watching Shingetsutan Tsukihime (The True Chronicles of the Moon Princess) today. Although this is more of a serious anime, it has some pretty cool action, and story line that goes to interesting places. Anime has a tendency to create randomness as well as brilliance and imagination and Shingetsutan Tsukihime is as imaginative as they come. It has to do with vampires, and vampire hunting, and secrets involving the son and daughter of an upper class family as well as an immortal vampire hunter, Ciel, played by Orikasa Fumiko.
I also finished watching Onegai Teacher with Harley last night. I thoroughly enjoyed the series, which was pretty much a love story… between a student and his teacher. But before you judge, the teacher is really an alien from outer space, and she lives next door to the student. Also, the student tends to randomly fall into comas and once he was in a coma for three years so he’s really 18 years old but everyone thinks his 15. Oh yeah, and he has to marry his teacher so that no one finds out that she’s an alien from outer space because that’s the only way they can keep it secret. On top of that, there’s this really cute little thingy that pilots the spaceship… See? Anime kicks ass.
One more series that I have only one episode left to watch is Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien (The Eternity That You Desire). This is one of those really-depressing-love-story animes that attract me for some reason and I can’t really say why either. I love the depressing love stories and as far as KimiNozo goes, this is one of the most insanely sad love stories I’ve seen. It kind of reminds me of Kanon. Actually it reminds me a lot of Kanon (those of you who read MegaTokyo are certainly aware of Piro’s obsession with all things Kanon). I would love to tell you about KimiNozo some more, but there isn’t much I can say that won’t spoil it for you. Also, avoid any descriptions or summaries you mind find on the web if you indeed plan to watch it because there are major plot twists in some places and it’s difficult to avoid them. All I can say is that it’s a really awesome anime and keeps me watching, cliffhanger after cliffhanger. So why haven’t I seen the last episode yet? I’m desperately waiting for it to come out. In fact, I still can’t tell you with any degree of certainty whatsoever what I think might happen in this episode and all the better. Luckily the series is balanced out very well by a couple of ridiculous waitress characters who also provide a post-credit insight that usually has nothing at all to do with the show but is hilarious for the sake of … well, cheering you up after another really depressing episode of KimiNozo. Either way, the series has managed to easily barge its way through to the top of my current favourites list and if you ever get a chance to see it, I highly reccomend it. (Of course, if you’re the kind of person that cries in movies for example, make sure you have a room full of kleenex handy).
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