Meh is indeed my overwhelming reaction to the new season of Gunslinger Girl.

It’s not terrible, certainly, but I expected much better than mediocre from both Gunslinger Girl and from Artland. The art style is noticeably similar to Mushishi (which Artland also animated), particularly the shading style and the way they favor simple, clean lines for the characters. Now, that I don’t necessarily have a problem with, since the GSG manga also uses this style… but WTF happened to the budget for this project??

I know Artland is capable of much, much better, because the consistency and attention to detail in Mushishi was fantastic (episode 20 “Sea of Brushes”, for example). The animation in this first episode of Gunslinger Girl -Il Teatrino- was just terrible, though. Where to start? Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Reader,

I am in the midst of a deep conundrum. I faithfully watched Clannad up until episode 9, the conclusion of Fuuko’s story arc. And I hated it.

I was too busy rolling my eyes to be able to shed any tears. Yet the rest of the blogosphere has been filled with nothing but “FU-CHAN BAAAAAAAAAAAW!!” and endless praise for the story. At first I passed it off as the Key fanboys doing their usual thing, but even Martin over at Concrete Badger, a true man’s man whose opinion I value, gave Clannad a favorable review.

Did I miss something? Am I doing it wrong? I feel like the characters in the story - as though I’m missing something important, but don’t know what it is. Quite honestly, I just don’t see what everyone else seems to be seeing. Read the rest of this entry »

Amidst all the furor over Japan’s newly implemented policy of fingerprinting every foreigner entering or leaving the country, as I was reading through the various comments on different blogs and news sites there was one particular type of reaction that stood out to me.

Many people were making comments like “That’s too bad, I was thinking of taking a vacation to Japan, but now with all these things I’m hearing, maybe I should stay away.”

Now certainly, Japan is not the magical land of rainbows and ponies and gumdrop smiles that your average weeaboo imagines it to be. In fact, sometimes it looks pretty bad. But at the same time, it’s also not all doom and gloom, racism and xenophobia, which is the impression that many people seem to be getting from all of the recent negative press.

So let me just reiterate a very important point:

Japan is still a wonderful place to visit.

Japan is a beautiful country with a rich culture and heritage and some of the kindest, most hospitable people I have ever met. It has some of the most breathtaking sights, most delicious cuisine, and best entertainment anywhere. It is also arguably the safest countries in the world to travel in.

Matsumoto Castle

Yes, if you are not Japanese you will generally be treated differently. This doesn’t necessarily mean in a derogatory way, however. On the contrary, the Japanese generally go to extraordinary lengths to be accommodating to guests in their country. Read the rest of this entry »

As tj_han recently demonstrated, among the subset of otaku known as “anime bloggers” there exist further subgroups which can be used for classification. Unfortunately, his list omitted a number of significant subtypes, which I feel are important to properly identify.

The same disclaimer applies here - all classifications and examples used in this article are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real persons or blogs is purely coincidental. Even if they have the same name and URL.

The Weeaboo

“ZOMG Japan is t3h CHOU SUGOI! I am more awesomer than u because I have been there and u have not!”

The Weeaboo blogger is a rabid fan of any and all things Japanese. He has usually visited Japan at least once and can speak some measure of Japanese. He declaims passionately about anything related to Japanese culture, and brooks no argument from those who he views as possessing inferior weeaboo qualifications (i.e. - have not personally visited Akihabara). He can frequently be seen employing phrases such as “Well my Japanese friend said that…” or “Actually in Japan it’s like this…”

Epic Win is a classic Weeaboo.

Note that upon reaching level 42, The Weeaboo may evolve into its third stage evolution: Read the rest of this entry »

DarkMirage’s recent criticism of Nyoro~n’s Gundam 00 translations sparked a flurry of criticism, mostly petty ad hominems telling him to get out of his parent’s basement, but also a few reasonable arguments defending Nyoro~n. After checking out Nyoro~n’s releases myself, I feel compelled to offer some defense of my own, on DarkMirage’s side of things.

Although I don’t usually watch fansubbed versions, I decided to download a few of these Nyoro~n subs to check out whether this was for real. I almost couldn’t believe that these so-called “translations” could actually be that bad until I saw it for myself.

At first I thought maybe it was just an isolated incident, or perhaps due to the extensive technical jargon that Gundam 00 employs. To double check, I decided to take a look at Nyoro~n’s subs for Gurren Lagann, a show which is much easier to understand and translate.

To my dismay, however, it’s just as bad! I feel sorry for the people who watched this thinking they were getting the real Gurren Lagann!

Take a look at the following comparisons: Read the rest of this entry »

Some of them, anyway.

After watching the recent OVA and reading through some of the manga, I have revised my opinion of Kojika somewhat. Read the rest of this entry »

Finally when I had something to look forward to…eagerly camping Tokyo Tosho, hitting F5 over and over again, gleefully envisioning the long awaited scene in which Makoto finally gets his just desserts…

Some little girl in Japan had to go all Higurashi on her dad, resulting in the final episode of School Days getting pulled, and now I have nothing to watch. Read the rest of this entry »

Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, who’s been under the gun ever since his party (the LDP) was royally whupped in the July 29 elections, has finally announced that he’s stepping down.

Considering all the troubles he’s had with his Agricultural ministers lately, as well as his push to extend the increasingly unpopular “support-the-US-war-on-terror” mission, it certainly comes as no surprise. It was a bit of a shock how suddenly he announced his resignation, however.

OK, time to put on my rant hat. Read the rest of this entry »

An Open Letter to Our Former Hosting Provider:

Dear Our Former Hosting Provider,

Why must you eat babies for sustenance, even though they provide little if any nutritional value? Why must you outsource all your technical support (and I use that term very loosely) to India, where they are all named James and yet cannot speak a single sentence of intelligible English?

Why, even though you promised 9,999.99% uptime, must your servers crash and burn harder than Michael Vick’s NFL career? Why do you force memes? And why is yo momma so fat?

Sincerely,

Epic Win

*sigh* My apologies to everybody who experienced problems trying to browse our site in the last few days. Our old host’s uptime proved worse than Itou Makoto’s long term relationship prospects, and I wasn’t about to pull a Katsura and stick around for more abuse. The DNS records should all be pointing over to our new server, and everything seems to be in working order.

If you have any problems surfing the site or trying to post comments, please let me know.

~0rion