bad luck party

Hajime no Ippo: New Challenger - To Be Continued!

Wow. That was awesome. There’s really not much else I can say about the show that essentially introduced me to the shounen sports genre that I am now so passionately devoted to. This season ended on a note of what I love best about the series, with Ippo training to get faster and stronger than ever before. I’m going to miss seeing the Kamogawa Gym guys every week (yes, even Takamura and his dick-grabbing, see below). Motto hayaku, motto tsuyoku, and hurry up with season 3 okay?

Hajime no Ippo: New Challenger - Punny

Holy crap. I’ve been lazy about going to training this week so I didn’t want to watch Ippo, thinking it would make me feel guilty for not hitting the bags. Luckily there is absolutely NO BOXING whatsoever in this episode, only the freaking world middleweight champion being a total lech, dick grabbing and some of the most horrible puns of all time. I bet the fansubbers are having a rough time with this one, hahaha.

Cross Game - Summer Nights and Black Undershirts

Geez, you know, I really wanted to post a screenshot of the scene where Azuma approaches Aoba because I have a strong shipping compulsion for those two (even though it will never happen because Kou X Aoba is sooo destined (Unless Adachi-sensei pulls another awesome fakeout like he did with H2 SPOILER STOP READING NOW where osana najimi Hiro and Hikari don’t end up together cuz Hikari stays with the amazing Hideo Tachibana (nested parentheses!))). But, I could not post said Azuma/Aoba screenshot. For the primary reason that Azuma looks so goddamn fine in his evil elite team black undershirt.

This summer camp episode was pretty good, besides the weird culture shock I get to this day regarding Japanese summer-is-the-scariest-season-blah-blah-Obon episodes. I don’t find bright sunny days or short nights all that creepy myself. We got some interesting plot development on the main team roster as the best players start to become disillusioned with their coach, some Kou and Aoba “ki ni naru” stuff which is always great, and the heavy implication that the farm team is all fired up and going to come back hard. Love training arcs.

You don’t even know how excited I am that Junpei shows up in the next episode preview.

Hatsukoi Limited - Life Goes On

I still feel like the crowning radness of this show was the relationship between these three. Hatsukoi is over in 12 episodes and despite being slow at times (anything involving Yamamoto), stupid at others (Koyoi and her oniisan) and fanservicey all the time, I liked it! I’ve made no secret on this blog that my favourite pairing was Kusuda and Kei, and I appreciated that the anime kept a lot of focus on their story throughout. But although Hatsukoi’s climax over the last two episodes was deeply entangled with the Kusuda/Kei relationship, I felt like it was the boys’ relationship with each other that made the story arc. Maybe I’m just a sucker for bike-trip arcs about young men finding themselves (TAKEMOTO!!!!) but I found the scene with the boys yelling their feelings while riding as fast as they could pretty damn touching. That, combined with the comedic dynamics between the worry-wart Zaitsu, prissy Sogabe and courageous but lazy/greedy/worthless Kusuda was the greatest part of the show. They were far more interesting - read funny, engaging and believable - on screen than the girls were for the most part. The girls’ whole “anata wa ima, koi o shite imasu ka?” thing was just kind of vacuous and annoying. I didn’t hate it but I wish the boys had set more of the tone from the early episodes. Overall though, I’m a big fan of the message that not all first loves work out, and the “life goes on” note that both the manga and anime closed with. Nice bittersweet ending, more on the sweet side than the bitter.

Eden of the East - Shooting Missles Out of the Sky With Your Finger is HARD

Hard as in Walker, Texas Ranger, not hard as in difficult obvz. Takizawa Akira is the hardest dude ever. I had to marathon the last 4 episodes to catch up with what everyone was talking about this week - the finale of what was arguably the best anime of 2009’s Spring Season. I had some trouble watching Eden every week because I felt like the heavy subject matter required me to be in a different headspace than fluffier sports/romance shows I can sneak in here and there. God damn was it ever hard preventing myself from reading everyone’s blogs though.

Marathoning the last few episodes was a good choice since I got to immerse myself in Eden’s world and fully appreciate just how good the writing and production of this show was. (I also didn’t have to cry for too long over Pantsu’s death, yay.) I can definitely say this is one of the most mature contemporary anime series’ I’ve seen. References to Dawn of the Dead combined with a compelling representation of the cultural apathy of an entire generation had me sold. I’m generally a slice of life junkie so give me a story about college graduates trying to find their way in society, struggling with unrequited loves and social disenfranchisement in a modern global setting and I’d be furiously happy. But the fact that the whole show was so cleverly written and woven into a political sci-fi mystery of this scale just blows me away.

I always feel like ending a series with film versions is a bit of a cop-out. Or cash-grab, anyway. I would usually bitch and moan about such an obviously “to-be-continued”, “get-you-next-time-Gadget” ending as episode 11 and note that the season really should have gone 25 episodes to get the most out of its depth of plot. But I’m actually looking forward to the two Eden movies that were announced as a continuation to the series - even if we’ve gotta wait well into next year for them over here. The epic conspiracy subject matter really does seem better suited to film than 22 minute tv slots (part of the reason I found watching every week difficult), and I’m SO looking forward to seeing a big-screen budget boost in the animation department. See you next year Takizawa-tachi!

Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - Endless Eight Begins

Shit, I really love those snakey firework things. Anyone wanna buy yukatas and go to the beach with me one night? Or at least a parking lot? I’m serious by the way.

Hajime no Ippo: New Challenger - 支える手 (wwww)

You have no idea how hard I laughed at this in the manga. I’m so glad they adapted it faithfully to the animated screen. Actually it was the glowing, naked Coach Kamogawa that made me lose my shit first, but I couldn’t get a clear enough screenshot to represent the situation to the non-Ippo-watchers. And this was something that needed to be shared.

Something that probably doesn’t need to be shared is the raging fangirl boner I have for Takamura with his hair down. (Shades of post-shower Domyouji, for the HanaDan fans out there.) Thank you for the completely gratuitous hotness.

A third and final thing that MUST BE SHARED however, is this, in case you di’n’t know: it ain’t over. Unofficial announcement by Takamura’s voice actor that the show is most definitely continuing after this initial 26 episode run. HECK YES, YOU GUYS!

ONE MORE PIC TO CELEBRATE!

Anime Evolution 2009 Run-Down + Higurashi no Naku Koro ni 1-4

Hey you know that tone of voice a person gets when they are speaking or laughing loudly and are overtly aware of the fact they are being overheard? Kind of hysteric and self-conscious with an extra emphatic delivery as if performing in front of a crowd? Yeah well I heard a lot of that this weekend.

As part of a social experiment in fandom Noogz and I bought 3-day passes to Vancouver’s Anime Evolution, the only con of its kind on the Canadian West Coast. I had gone to a couple of AE’s earlier incarnations in the mid-to-late 90s up at SFU when I was a young anime-obsessed tyke, and was quite aware that things have changed since then. Notably, the fact that I attended cons in both Edmonton (at Grant McEwan) and Vancouver between 1995-1997 is indicative of the fact I’ve been in this hobby for a good 12 or 13 years longer than most of the teenagers swarming the new convention centre this weekend, showing off their elaborate cosplays and sitting on each other’s laps.

I was fully prepared for this and didn’t think much of it, but when faced with a program chock full of shallow panels and screenings I had no interest in, I realized my error. When I was young and forcing my Mom or teenage cousin Danny to accompany me to cons (I was only 11 when I started getting into anime heavily and none of my friends shared my passionate interest in Japanese culture), we would hit viewing rooms for hours on end. Everything from You’re Under Arrest to Tenchi Muyo, from Irresponsible Captain Tylor to Please Save My Earth, from Ghost In The Shell to Bubblegum Crisis, I first encountered at those “cons” (really a few of them were more like university club anime nights, to be honest…) Those rooms were brilliant, paradigm-changing spaces of discovery for me, before we even had internet at home let alone Wikipedia or Bittorrent. They were the only way for a little English girl living in a Canadian city to find out what shows existed and experience different anime genres without forking out cash for mystery VHS tapes in Japantown.

Nowadays if there’s a classic or current anime that I’m interested in, chances are I’ve seen it or it’s sitting on my hard drive and the rest I’m aware of and couldn’t be bothered with. I wonder if this is just a result of me spending the last decade immersing myself in my hobby (the con may well still be a great place to get an introduction to the world of anime) or if it’s more to do with the rise of the internet, thereby rendering viewing rooms redundant (or at very least changing their role).

The one notable exception this weekend was Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, a show I’ve consistently heard good things about but due to horror/mystery not being a favourite genre of mine it’s not something I would ever seek out to purchase or download. We had 2 hours to kill on Friday night though and saw that they were screening the first 4 episodes of Higurashi at the perfect time. Caught off guard by the surreal beauty/violence of the OP credits (above), I was both pleasantly surprised and utterly creeped out. What started in the first episode as a sweet and dull small-town moe anime showed horrifying and subversive flashes of brilliance as it morphed into a psychological thriller. I was riveted till the very end of the first 4-episode arc, felt kind of scared getting into my bed later on that night, and think I’ll probably seek out more of this show.

But returning to my “Wahhh, I’ve been into anime for soooo long I find your cons stupid and boring” argument… Panels, at AE at least, seemed geared even more toward beginner fans than the anime screening schedule. J-Dramas, visual novels and “working in the video game industry” (haha) are all things I’m quite interested in, but the amount I could learn from the panel discussions on offer seemed dubious. Again, I’m not hating. Just noting that despite being an epically huge fan of anime, VNs and doramas, I felt like I wasn’t really the target demographic for this con.

What would I have liked to see at AE? Some fucking Japanese guests, KTHXBAI. I realize Vancouver is a tiny, laughable city next to New York, Boston or San Diego and booking the convention centre must have cost a bomb but could we really not get a single effing voice actor, writer or musical artist? (OK, the Japanese band Minxzone played on Saturday night - which Noogz and I unfortunately had to miss because we were playing a show of our own - but my point still stands.) I suppose there were quite a few English language voice actors at the con but they weren’t recognizable to those of us who watch subs or raws, leaving us with a bit of an empty feeling. Not to mention an empty schedule…

The most enjoyable parts of the weekend for both Noogz and I were spending a few hours in the dealer room and watching some visual kei and otaku bands covering our favourite Japanese songs on the main stage. There wasn’t a lot being sold by vendors at AE that couldn’t be found in Asian import malls and Japanese bookstores all over Metro Vancouver, but it was kind of nice to have it all in one place and to have a bit of a selection of doujinshi as well. And of course, just watching all the cosplayers was great fun. Noogz and I wore school uniform cosplay both days we attended (Takasu and Minori from ToraDora and Yuuji and Shana from Shakugan no Shana respectively) but the majority of the cosplayers went WAAAAY larger.

It seems that the most popular series’ to cosplay were Shounen Jump titles (hundreds of Narutos, srsly what did you expect) and video games. Final Fantasy characters, anyone from Nintendo Super Smash Bros and even Team Fortress 2 all had pretty big showings this weekend. (I sort of wonder when anime and mainstream console game fandoms started to get convoluted, but as a fan of both I ain’t complaining.) Additionally I also saw about 6 different CCs, and one was even eating an actual, steaming hot slice of pizza.

All in all it was good times, would go again, but it’s important to keep the expectations low if you’re not 16 years old and surrounded by 80 of your closest friends wielding “yowie”(sic) paddles. The End.