idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (instaloli)
(I keep trying to like things as I go through my LJ feed. Yikes.)

Facebook and Tumblr do create such a laziness. "Can't be bothered to comment, but if I like it they'll know I've seen it and appreciate it~"

on me right now:
I'm here on LJ again probably by grace of pulling the reins in on my SuitDistracted blog. I get a bit obsessive, and so when I was exhausting myself trying to keep up with it in the perfect way to acquire new followers, I realized I had to let it go.

Guess what? People still find it and follow it, when I haven't posted a thing in days.
And there have been over 4000 likes or reposts of that silly MCR .gif I originally posted ages ago. It blew up again today, hitting a new pocket of fangirl blogs. (Seriously. How many pockets of MCR fangirls do you HAVE, Tumblr? How are they not all already friends?)

I am interning for an agent and though it seemed like a huge deal to decide to even apply, it's totally fun and no big sweat, and I read a manuscript that the agent ended up signing and it is too bad about how long it will be before I can tell you more than that.

We Skyped with my brother Dan on Christmas morning, at his in-laws, and he is suuuuuuuper adorable with his little wifey, though she was waiting to have her wisdom teeth pulled the next day, poor thing. But they are totally cute, and it is ridiculous. It also is somehow...nicer, than him being off over there alone with just extended family.

And I watched Princess Mononoke with my 3 youngest sibs over the holiday, too, which they'd never seen. And oh...my heart.

I think that is actually my favorite movie. It's a bit unusual for Miyazaki--he has heroines, but his POV character is a guy. And yet...his animation is a bit delicate. I think he's supposed to be of a tribe that is slighter, of different stock. The people you meet up with in the West, when he leaves his home town, are speaking more brash Japanese, have a meatier physicality. San may also be of a different people, but she is square--no sheltered child but grown up tough and athletic.

The trifecta of characters and their interactions is so subtle, and it's not something I really appreciated fully when I first watched it. In fact, watching it with subtitles this time felt fresh--I may have not seen it with them more than once before. I was sorrowful about the way San and Ashitaka don't get together at the end as a teenager.

As an adult, I am sorrowful from the moment Ashitaka leaves his tribe, who say they are dying out, and he was to be their chief, no doubt also meant to raise a family to keep their people alive for another generation. The ambiguous ending with the humans is nice. The fact that the visible, tactile magic has disappeared--that's sorrowful. And yet well-handled--I hate it when a writer thinks they can fundamentally change the world at the end of the story, so it's our world, and have that feel right.

Instead, it's just turned to something less obvious. The world doesn't change that much.
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (drinkdeep)
I still have my middle-to-be-forgotten username coming up in my browser suggestions, right under this one. This both humors and saddens me.

Not that I changed it. That I didn't wait for the second name to come to me before changing it the first time!

But, doing away with lachrymosa
(sorry, Evanescence in my head)

and on to GHIBLI

I got to see The Secret World of Arrietty, finally, because I have a friend who is a completest about collecting things and has ALL THE GHIBLI or at least is attempting it

eeeeeeeeep.

The cuteness!

Cuteness untainted by too much moral
(though for a second there, I thought, oh no, blatant preach on preserving nature, have you returned to us? But. It was more subtle, actually)
and yet weighted by enough motivation and core emotion.
Not the strongest, but it followed the main threads of story more closely than the live-adaptation did, even with being moved to Japan.

The ideas that they came up with for translating the world-building of their tiny lives built out of normal human stuff...I'm a sucker for that anyway, but the sound design, too, was very thoughtful about scale, and the dynamics of liquid...

Some notes, not spoilery, since not everyone would notice--Homily has a spinning wheel! Their water-bottle is the kind of cute soy-sauce bottle made small enough to go in a bento. Yes, there are little sausages that come wrapped like candy, like you'll see.

Though a fairly simple storyline, I was very intrigued about the reasons characters acted as they did, and then was surprised a bit by their motivations, even if they could have been obvious on the page.

It's a sweet nostalgic story, played to the strengths of the studio--interesting play with real-world elements morphed, a fascinating minutiae to the sets, a sense of resolution even in an open-ended final scene.

Oh, and spunky girls who love nature!
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)

So my sister took a crazy amount of photos of ME at TnT, and a crazy percentage didn't make me wanna hurl, SO

You get some sassy hair-glamourizing portraits.

(That my hair looks okay is stunning: it is so badly in need of a trim--as it gets longer it gets harder to part with each inch...)

I asked my sister to take some shots here, the stairwell at the convention center, just because I love the urban decay vibe.

I dropped one of the new pins I bought (cliche, but this one place had the cutest Calcifer AND Sesshoumaru AND Ouran's Kyoya, irresistible chibi lineup) and she got some cool hair-swoop photos.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't know at the time and arrange myself accordingly. This is probably the best photo from the whole day of my Kpop Boy Band outfit, too...

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)

I am feeling gross-ish, so I started watching a new shojo anime.

As you do.

I am also watching it on my phone because my computer seems too bulky to be comfortable.

(When did I get rid of my last pair of fat-pants?

Anyway, it looked intriguing and fluffy. Surprisingly good, though in the exactly fluffy way I'd expected (it's amazing how you can do it wrong, yes, I'm looking at you Mei-chan No Shitsuji).

It's got: isolated girl, magical blood, butler guy, elite rich people. It's the remix that's fun.

The heroine is waaaay tsundere, because she's been picked on as the rich girl all her life. Already that's fun, one of those as the viewpoint character, instead of a friend-sidekick. She moves into this elite mansion*...to try and discipline herself out of her sarcastic ways. Finds herself assigned one of the Secret Service guys that are part of the building. Twist: they're all, SS and resident, part youkai.

Slow build-up right now, but that's fairly usual for a fantasy shojo comic, which it is based off. I would actually really like to get my hands on that. I am only two episodes in.

(*accidentally used the Japanese transliteration here: it means apartment, like in a high rise. I'm not sure why that's the word used, or exact application)

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)

I'll keep this one short and sweet, but I'm sorry guys

I'm pretty sure Sokka is the best, and the Avatars and bitter Firebending princes (that...sounds naughty to me for some reason) can go off with their emotions and heroics while we giggle in an igloo.

Just so's you know.

***
OMG
I JUST FIGURED OUT
HE'S JIRO WANG
like if there was a t-drama of this he would play Sokka, if he wasn't already a leads actor, sob, though, sob he could also totally play Aang

because the Taiwanese specialize in agebending

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)
[livejournal.com profile] rhinemouse recommended Puella Magi Madoka Magica (or, as subtitled in Japanese, Magical Girl Madoka Magica) and I realized, okay, I'm almost out of Maid-sama! episodes, lets look at whether Crunchy roll has it.

Wow, Rose. I deserved the agony of a new thing on my roster of things to watch, it's karma--but this is a much better anime (even just in the first episode) than I have seen in a long time.

It's creepy and beautiful. The portrait of her life and city and school is so idyllic it screams horror, because soon there must be blood everywhere, it's just the narrative law.

It's also the first time I've ever been able to hear this particular kind of cutesy girl voice in a main character and not shut the window down--it works somehow in the dream world (in several senses) that this story is in.

I'm already afraid of finding out about the destruction of this magical girl trope I was warned about--the sinister edge of the magic world so far is less of an edge and more of a cleaver-blade.
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)

I~nteresting.

I can see why they altered the time-line of the initial part a little, to make it more punchy, and maybe going a bit more toward the cliche action anime opening is why it grabbed its audience.
However, I do kind of enjoy the bizarre set-up stage, and thought this episode lacked a little of the personality and mystery of the original.

I think the English translation smoothed out some of the odd clashes of diction. Then again I do NOT know much about genre conventions of language in Japanese. I just know how delightfully odd they are transposed into English...

I do like the Japanese voice actor, though his voice is SO familiar it's a little startling... And yet, I don't think I've watched anything else he's done. Just one of those voices, I guess. Rukia? I'm going to have to adjust. I have a suspicion I'd like her better in English.

[ETA: The second episode delves a little into the life Ichigo has, but again, lacks a little of the commonplace atmosphere in the nuance of the original. I'm ENJOYING it, it's just interesting because usually I don't like the original manga so clearly more than the adaptation...]

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)


Okay. This cracked out Momotaro retelling episode of Maid-sama? Probably the best digression from a main narrative I have ever encountered...

The 8-bit traveling montage? Bizarre, and wonderful. The girlfriends playing Grams and Gramps, talking in dialect that strongly resembles that of my Japanese hometown? Tea-snortingly funny.

It could be that I'm out of it, though. Totally falling down on my no-more-than-one restriction today, but I also threw up today, so. I call that a free pass.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)
We watched the beginning of Nausicaa today--until the DVD failed us. There are scratches on it more typical of being left reading-side-down and left to scrape against something, rather than much use. Which is sad.

But this was my first time rewatching it, and the gorgeousness of some of the images is just fantastic. Miyazaki's way of thinking outside the frame...

It's interesting, too, to see in his first original film, basically, all the characteristics of a Miyazaki film.

A strong, somewhat enigmatic woman of ideals. A woman in power with a compelling air on the other side of the conflict. Monster-movie monsters that become sympathetic, and a detailed attention to the life of common people in the created worlds.

And that ecological world-building like in my favorites, Mononoke, Spirited Away.

Also some style characteristics used later in similarly themed Mononoke--flashback sequences with a dream-like horror to them.

***
Having given up on this DVD, I went to watch Black & White, which the mysoju.com version was not loading, and I went to dramacrazy.com and...

There's a GORGEOUS version. And it's the one that's not subtitled. The others are all in 240p definition. T____T

Practically inhumane, I say.

I speak two whole words of Mandarin, and I think my tones are wrong...
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)
It is a rare illness that can make me unable to accomplish at least something while sick.

This has been the case for almost 2 weeks, so the only redemption has been blogging about all the stuff I was watching, etc. Just thought I'd mention it, in case you were wondering what was wrong with me...I mean, with the posting so much.

***

Kaichou wa Maid-sama!



This is an anime based on a manga I've read the first several volumes of. In a way, it's nothing out of the ordinary (which is why after a certain point I was done with it). In another way, it's the kind of premier fun that Ouran and Skip-Beat are. Not the same excellence of plotting that Skip-Beat has, not quite the same level of tongue-in-cheek trope twisting as Ouran, but the gleefully ridiculous storyline that only manga can get away with.

I think this anime seems to have been created by the same people who did the Skip-Beat anime. Something I...am kind of surprised to notice.

I like the anime a LOT. It has the kind of playful touch that makes the kind of drawing-related humor only more funny in animation. (Part of the reason I suspect the same hand as in Skip-Beat--way similar treatments of manga-to-anime visual gags.)

I think the charm of the story set-up lies in it's balance. Though later it falls into "too much boyfriend, not enough roller-derby" territory, toward the beginning, the main character has a job that she does well at, also a school government role that has her really active around the school, and this threads through the plots nicely.

Wallflower -- Yamato Nadeshiko no Shichi Henge*



Oddly, I didn't really get into this, though [livejournal.com profile] timeripple high recommended it, and I both love the source manga and enjoyed the flawed live-action show.

I think it's actually that it went too far in trying to capture the manga's visual humor and didn't do it with as light of a touch. I plan to watch a couple more episodes (the opening of most mangas are a bit rough, and anime is not exempt from awkward adaptation jitters) but I was alternatively surprised to go try Kaichou and find that I enjoyed it so much more.

Maybe different expectations going in has something to do with it. (-_-;)

*This title phrase involves two Japanese terms: first, a woman embodying the Japanese ideal, and then the "Seven Changes" a dance in which a Kabuki actor changes clothes seven times. So, in a word "The Transformation to an Ideal Woman" which is completely colorless next to the original...

Just in case you were, you know, curious what all that word-stuff trailing around with it was when it had a perfectly descriptive English title.



Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 27



Okay, I really want to sit down with the last 5 volumes or something, to really read the whole ending arc over. I can't really comment on it, just this last volume except to say

10! for the graceful dismount...

Seriously, I can only hope and pray that Arakawa has another fantastic idea she's been dying to work on to follow this, because the series ended just as it should have, just when it should have, but I am not going to be happy to live in a world where she's not coming out with more manga.
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (snicker)
Several more of the people on my F-List have come around to sense and read some of Megan Whalen Turner's work, so I've been skipping around making verbal parries about Tricksters, and love of rascals, and all sorts of things. Golden days, really!

[livejournal.com profile] rhinemouse  made some excellent, excellent points over at her post about characters Smarter Than Everyone Else
including:

"It's partly because, when a character is portrayed as Smarter Than Everybody Else In The Room, I empathize with Everybody Else and not Mr. Smarter."

She goes on to make a much more profound point, about what mostly else makes her not *like* (even if she is interested) in these characters, but sadly, I am not going to address any sort of moral ambiguity and my rationale for enjoying it. [Yet. yet?]


It made me realize that this is exactly the same reason I love them.



:cue great clashing, crashing sound:

Why, yes, I do identify with being the Smartest One in the Room.

No, not really.

In fact, I've spend most of my life tagging along with my brother, or having him tagging along with me, and feeling inferior. He's not so much smarter as more adept at expressing his knowledge, of acquiring actual facts and trivia that I only remember as broad-strokes, pieces that become part of a weave of understanding in abstract terms.

What I identify with is having only intelligence as a weapon, of prizing it as my best possession. Being quick on the uptake, sensitive to nuance. What I long for, that they have, is being quick on the draw, shameless about using it to their advantage.



Robert Downey, Jr. makes both of the above characters more identifiable to me because he talks like several of my relatives, with the same brittle gloss of wit and obvious core of insecurity. People who take this to an extroverted place, instead of, like me, creating the characters to say the outrageous things I think would be funny to say.

A lot of these characters also have physical expertise, a martial art or something similar. I think a common trait, though, is that it's one honed with grace and effort, discipline, not a brute capability. Smaller, or lankier, or less traditionally athletic than is ideal, is probably how they view themselves.

Spiderman, for example. He gets powered up, sure, but he still uses his wit to compensate for his view of himself, and if he and Superman collided in mid-air, Superman's not the one going down like a ton of bricks. (More like tumbling like a rag-doll. To be kind of cruel.)


This is what separates them from a Gary Stu, really.

There's an illusion of effortless to them, but I can see through it--because even if I have no outward resemblance, my internal landscape is very similar.




Okay, this still sounds like an epically egotistical statement. And unlike these guys, I can't just pull it off, so I guess I'll just have to apologize...

Nah.


Curious, though. Characters you've found quite lovable when they struck other people sour?
Am I completely alone in being all, "Ahahah, sheeple, TAKE THAT FOR BEING THE MAJORITY and sneering at our verbal subtlety!"



[I also really identify with the characters like Magus and the Minister of War who are more reserved, can keep up, but are left to clean up messes from these sparklingly brilliant characters. I crush on them all the harder for it.]
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)
A whole subculture of my F-List was posting about Avatar: The Last Airbender, finishing the shows and so on.

I had watched the first episode early last year (? maybe?) and never got back to it, so I figured now was the time to buck up and do it.

I'd mistakenly said something about it being the American voice acting that bothered me the first time--this is true of any anime I watch, anyway. I'd rather watch it in Japanese, even if the casting is usually obvious. It may be partly that it weirds me out to see Japanese people speaking in English, or something--being stubborn, as if I understand the original language's intent that didn't have to be translated.

Actually, it's the animation of Avatar that sorta bothers me--the exaggerated expressions for some reason niggle at me ways the Japanese animation exaggerations don't. (The ones that I've seen.) I didn't grow up on American cartoons, so I'm just not accustomed? I guess.


Anyway. It's a perfect match for me now I can knit. I don't have to look at any expression for long, as I glance down at what I'm doing.
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (dismemberment)
Nostalgia is a funny thing.

It's not many months since I skipped forward to check out the end of Inuyasha, completely bored with the sameness of every episode/chapter/arc and then wrote my first fanfic. But this week at the library I caught sight of Vol. 3 and thought, "Awww, Inuyasha!"

It really is the perfect "back when I didn't know better" childhood manga. Too bad I don't have that excuse..


I also scored a copy of Quidditch Through the Ages in the book sale.
It is such a patent piece of fandom I am very pleased to be able to look it over at  my leisure. It promises to be funny in it's uncompromising conceit, and ripe for open-to-a-random-page breaks from reality.

TnT 2010

Jun. 18th, 2010 08:58 pm
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)
Went to a panel on (basically) Loli fashion, which talked of the subgroups. Fascinating thing.

Unsurprisingly, I wanna wear the boy-version.
Do Not Ask me why. I wish to know myself. It's not that I'm not girlish!

Someone was cosplaying Westley, which was a fun thing to ?...!

And having just read a few more volumes of Naruto I recognized a lot of the characters. My favorite Naruto had the least formal costume, but had done some niiiiice eyeliner, in his face being made up.

Being a LILYLIVER, I didn't ask him for a picture. But I Heart You! whoever you are.




Also, remind me that I'm officially Old People to the crowd before I go next time. I keep forgetting...
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)
Lately I've been doing pretty good about not seeking out more things to distract me from writing and spinning.
But I just discovered something I missed because of it.

T'heck with it, I'm pretty psyched anyhow!

LIVE ACTION "WALLFLOWER" SHOW!


I have, like, 10 episodes to catch up on.
BLISS.


Okay, let me explain.

  Wallflower is a comic by a manga artist who realized suppressing her inner Goth and absurd sense of humor weren't making her stories any better.
   Wallflower is the answer to super-sweet makeover comics, that denies none of it's heritage, either.



The girl refuses to be made over except temporarily, under strong bribery. She likes horror flicks, skeleton models, and torture.
The guys she's bunkered up with are mostly immune to her lack of charm, but love her cooking. AND they are the beauties of the school, a type she has always hated and doesn't really get used to.
And one of them is constantly being kidnapped by obsessive fans.

Kyohei,Wallflower
Yes. THE GUY.

<3
It doesn't matter that Japanese TV isn't that good, I'll take more of this story any way I can get it...
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)
I know I've been Miss Post-Happy lately. For this I am sorry.

{jitsu wa itsumo motto gaman tzuyoi na mon nan da kedo...}*


But I really need to update a few people on the Very Important Progress of Bethany through Mangaland.
Or anime-land, as it were, but it doesn't have the same ring, so tekitouni tsukatta.**

Thoughts: Only On Ouran HS Host Club, You May Skip If You Couldn't Care Less.
(Or just post a link to a cute character picture from another comic of your choice.)

I'm getting to the end of the anime. I'm looking forward to seeing how they develop it, since I've read up to the latest release on the comic and it's tying up nicely there. (Beware spoilers of a sport, if you care...)

kusunoda/Casanova/Bossa-Nova!

I've decided I really like that character and his subplot. The anime refresher brought this home to me.
Kyaa~

KyouyaWhatNow?
I also find it interesting that Honey-Senpai outright states he believes Kyouya has feelings for Haruhi in his round-up statement on everyone's love lives. As far as I noticed, there was no real development there in the comic, except for the cute little day-on-the-depaato sequence. (The mock-harrassment thing...is very ambiguous. Such lovely ambiguousness, it is too, dark and dreamy...)

Thoughts, anyone?
(This would leave only Honey Senpai and Mori out of the love-muddle. Which is fine. Except who wouldn't love to see Mori with someone? It may be he's too serious to go out with anyone while still in high school. Or he has a secret relationship...moe~moe)

Ohmigosh. I am turning into a fangirl!? NOEZ.




*the truth is I usually am just better at restraining myself, though...
**am doing as I please/without regard

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