Opinion Prone

At the beginning of August, I read an ANN article about the release of a legitimate fan remix album featuring a variety of otaku favorites. That the DJ, Pete Ellison, a.k.a., INITIAL P, bothered to get official permission to produce the album struck me the most, considering how few seem to worry about the legitimacy of selling anything fan-made, even as fanart rules are slowly sweeping through the Artist Alleys of various conventions. A week later, while I was at Anime Overload in Austin, I checked my inbox and was very surprised to find an email by Ellison asking if I would review the album. When I got home the following Tuesday, Anime Love Hardcore had already arrived on my doorstep.

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I don’t read as many Western comics as I probably should, though this mostly my own fault. Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli was a title I’d heard tossed around a lot in the last few months, but even with a roommate’s recommendation and several mentions on SEQALAB, I put it off. Well, with my college days wrapping up, I decided I was going to take these last few days to read every single one of aforementioned roommate’s comics before we all went our separate ways for the summer. This collection, naturally, included Asterios Polyp.

Annnnd Asterios Polyp is easily one of the most amazing comics I’ve read in recent memory. This is also one of the shortest reviews I’ve written in recent memory, mostly because I find that language is failing me in my attempts to tell you just why this book is amazing. Besides, it’s always easier to ramble on about why I dislike something than why I like something. There are more synonyms for negative words than there are for positive words. Asterios Polyp been nominated for four 2010 Eisner Awards, and if it doesn’t win at least one, then by golly, the Eisners must not mean much anymore.

(this review contains no spoilers)

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VAMPS
VAMP’s debut album
10th June 2009

You know, I really dislike self-entitled albums. They kind of make mentioning them in a [band]‘s [album] format awkward. Moving on, despite being a fan of hyde, I was never really that interested in VAMPS. I mean, I adore hyde’s work with L’Arc~en~Ciel, and his one-time collaboration with Gackt for “orenji no taiyou” was also amazing, but his solo work leaves a lot to be desired (especially in his third solo album, Faith), and that’s what K.A.Z. had previously worked with him on. And as VAMPS’s debut US tour did not visit any city I was remotely close to, I felt even less compelled to familiar myself with the music.

Additionally, the overt-vampire references in all of this — in the band name, the album name, the label name, and pretty much all of the song names and imagery — kind of made me facepalm. I would expect it from Gackt, who only recently came out as a mere mortal and has a long history of vampire and goth sound and imagery. But, well, I guess it really isn’t that big of a surprise coming from hyde either… considering the fact that he’s acted as both a vampire and a ghost, songs like “Midnight Celebration,” various photoshoots, and a lot of his fashion and accessory choices. Well, whatever brings all the fangirls to the yard, right?

And in the end, hyde is hyde, and I knew it was only a matter of time before I eventually decided to pick this up. So here we go:

TRACK 01: BITE
Thirty-second opening track! Starts off with some very classic horror elements — swanky TV noises in the background, creeking door, clock striking, howling, a woman moaning sensually and a scream! Classy.

TRACK 02: LOVE ADDICT
Now some rockin’ guitar with a very catchy beat. hyde’s vocals start rough and excitedly, a welcome throwback to some of his older work. Lyrics are in Engrish and they are hilarious as usual, so I’m not going to try too hard to decipher what he’s saying. Melody is pretty negligent as the song progresses, but the guitars carry a steady beat, so there’s at least that to tie things together. End of the first chorus has a weird break before hyde comes back in slowly, in a lower voice. K.A.Z. (I guess?) providing some backup vocals here and there, but nothing really substantial or interesting. I think the repeated lyrics near the end are “right on time, let’s go,” but it could also be “let go.” It frustrates me sometimes that hyde has spent so long singing in English, but it rarely seems to get more understandable. Guitars fade out to the end. Not a good song, not a bad song.

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A lot of people from my generation like to complain that traditional animation methods such as 2D cel animation and stop-motion have been replaced by less-worthy 3D counterparts. We’re all a little nostalgic for the oldschool stuff, but I think it’s a little unfair to suggest that 3D is somehow inferior or that it somehow takes less work. Sure, the time and effort it takes to draw every single frame of a character animation may have become a little under-appreciated, but those in the offended camp probably under-appreciate the time it takes to model, texture, render and rig a 3D character animation. Appreciation aside though, I did think it was a damn shame when Disney closed down its 2D animation branch after the disastrous Home on the Range movie, and was amongst the hopeful when the company later turned around and decided to make a return to its roots.

The periodic trailers and behind-the-scenes looks released for the Princess and the Frog all looked amazing. The character designs felt like they would have fit in well with the Disney movies of the early 90′s and the animation was similarly nostalgic. In addition to being a throwback to the animated features I grew up with, I was happy to see another film focused on a slice of American history and culture, in this case, the French Quarter of New Orleans before and after World War I. The music and musical style were less of a concern for me since movies like Tarzan, Lilo & Stitch and the Emperor’s New Groove worked perfectly fine without much, if any, bursting into song. Still, the last Disney musical was Mulan, and Mulan was all kinds of amazing, so anticipation remained extremely high for this film. I finally got to see it yesterday.

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I finally got around to finishing up my review for the DOGS OAV. (MAL mirror is here.)

I put off watching the last two episodes for a while just because the first two were so… underwhelming. It’s fairly rare for me to discover a manga before a corresponding anime is made since I watch a lot more than I read, but honestly, it’s probably better that way considering how annoyingly purist I tend to be about adaptations. I don’t want to feel this way! This feeling of burning injustice when something turns out much less amazing than you’d like — when something doesn’t seem to do the original justice at all. The strange thing about the DOGS anime is that it doesn’t really seem to be its fault that it sucked (well, aside from the shitty animation). I feel like the format just didn’t suit it. DOGS is just something better read than watched, even if the voice actors all do great jobs and there are lots of action scenes.

Then again, maybe the anime only proves that underneath all of Shirow Miwa’s beautiful artwork, his story and characters aren’t that interesting after all. Maybe that’s what pisses me off the most. Nobody wants to be shown that something they loved isn’t actually that awesome. Is the love that comes from blinding nostalgia enough? The manga marches on, so I guess I’ll keep seeing what Miwa’s really made of. Viz’s release of the first volume of DOGS: BULLETS&CARNAGE came out earlier this month and I’ll be picking it up soon; might do another semi-review, but we’ll see.

It’s always hard to ignore a title after someone writes an excellent post about it, but Solanin is also a highly attractive two volumes in length — perfect for my limited time and short attention span. And I guess there was also some masochistic curiosity to it because I knew Solanin would be painful to read. It’s about post-college life. It’s about life in general. It’s about still growing up even after you thought you’d already done so. And it hits very close to home.

Here is the review, and here is the MAL mirror.

Reading it was very hard in the beginning. Sixteen pages in and I could already relate absurdly well with both Meiko and Taneda, and hell, all their friends as well. It was depressing, but it got easier the further I progressed because they became their own people, rather than just ghostly representations of myself and people I knew. The story is how they choose to live their own lives, one path in a forest of many. Theirs aren’t the best choice, nor the worst. It isn’t an answer, but it’s there. Highly recommend.

NEXT LEVEL
Ayumi Hamasaki’s 11th album
25th March 2009

It blows my mind how quickly Ayumi Hamasaki seems to come out with new music, especially considering the number of tracks she puts onto each album, the number of remixes on each of her singles, and her slew of remix albums (holy crap, this woman loves remixes). I first became a fan around when her Memorial Address mini-album was releasing and it seems not so long ago that My Story came out in 2004. Since then, I can’t say I’ve been very good about keeping up with her releases, partially because my interest shifted to j-rock and indie for a while, but her contribution to Dragonball Evolution piqued my interest again, even if I didn’t think Ayu had any chance of saving a destined-to-be-terrible movie. “Rule” was a pretty fun single, and I thought it suited the energy of the subject matter pretty well (or, well, it suited the source material). It wasn’t super impressive, but I think it was only a matter of time before I went and checked out this album. The name NEXT LEVEL is also pretty Dragonball-ish, don’t you think?

TRACK 01: Bridge to the sky
Calming intro for all of a moment, then an uprising steady beat that grows into an ensemble of various sounds backed by a nice techno beat. Lots of sustained vocals and a gradual crescendo seem to be leading into something big. The techno gets more pronounced and then– silence. Clearly, this is an intro track for the rest of the album. Honestly, I’ve never been a huge fan of intro tracks because they’re awkward when you don’t play them with the rest of the album in album order (like when you put things on shuffle), but when you are listening to the album straight through, they’re pretty nice.

TRACK 02: NEXT LEVEL (Youtube it)
Starts off with a confident piano soon to be accompanied by keyboards and the stray guitar. Vocals start rather unimpressively and I’m kind of more interested in the background music than the lyrics or melody. Gets better as she leads into the chorus, which has some nice energy. I’m a sucker for when lyrics roll together smoothly, like there are no real breaks in between the words. Some nice keyboard and guitar in the break before the second verse. The beginning of the second verse is again less interesting, but it recovers faster this time. The melody for the chorus is definitely the best part of the song thus far, though I don’t think this is a good example of Ayumi’s vocal prowess; her voice sounds rather plain in this, honestly. Bridge and final round of choruses don’t change much — outro is the same piano, keyboard, and stray guitar, and it slowly leads to the end.

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I finally finished my review for The Sky Crawlers (MAL mirror is here).

I think definitely think it’s one of those movies that I’ll need to watch again to fully appreciate, but as usual, I like to convince myself that I don’t have the time. I will check out that book of concept art from the movie again if I get the chance though — a lot of the environments ended up not being as complicated as I remembered, though the concept art also included a lot of diagrams and floorplans for the outpost and things that might not necessarily have been animated. Funny thing about the animation though, for it being so important that the characters are perceived as young, I never really realized just how young we were really supposed to think they were. From appearances alone, I would place Kannami and Kusanagi anywhere between fifteen and mid-twenties, a good decade of leeway. Behavior-wise, they seemed closer to mid-twenties, I would think, but everyone insisted on their persistent childhood. How young is too young to fight an endless war? Is there really an age where such things are appropriate? When does anyone really stop being a child? I’m not sure whether the age ambiguity in the designs was intentional or whether stylized anime in general has just ruined my age perception permanently. Everyone always looks youthful.

Seirios
RURUTIA’s 6th album
27th February 2009

RURUTIA is one of only a handful of artists that I wasn’t introduced to by the “usual means,” which are 1) exposure via anime or related media and 2) direct recommendation from friends. Until recently, I was so negligent of radio and other such random discovery tools that I only learned of new English-speaking artists via AMVs, which is kind of sad? Now that I’ve found a nice plugin to read in Pandora’s outputs into my last.fm (thus, satisfying my OCD), I’ve been giving that a spin, but that really has nothing to do with RURUTIA, whom I discovered on my own a few years ago. Though her style and genre is quite a ways apart from my usual rock, pop, and alternative, the mysterious quality of her music has always drawn me in.

The echoey ambience of RURUTIA’s voice is haunting and airy, perhaps other worldly; the emotion always feels very sincere, very innocent, very hopeful. Her melodies also have a lot of classical influence, which is always a huge plus for me. Unfortunately, I’ve only heard her first couple of albums, so I’m not sure how her style might have evolved over the years. The most recent album of hers I’ve heard is Meme from 2005, and I haven’t really been keeping up with her singles either. This should be interesting then, huh?

TRACK 01: Seirios (YouTube it)
Quiet, but dramatic, piano opening with electronic distortion in the tempo. Vocals are slow and eerie… every syllable is enunciated very clearly. Chorus picks up the pace and the sound is a lot more forceful, stronger, and very desperate sounding. Her pronunciation of “Seirios” is recognizable, which is kind of surprising since she doesn’t often sing in English (if at all?). Second verse echos the first, slow and haunting. It builds very steadily and the second chorus erupts really nicely from it. Ooh, really beautiful high notes here. The emotion is really touching; the melody is really awesome. This would be great music to accompany some kind of final struggle. There is no bridge or final chorus, but the outro is a quiet (but still dramatic) piano interlude with the distortion to keep you on your toes until it fades out to silence.

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You know, it’s funny. I went into this with the full intention of not taking the film adaptation too seriously so maybe I could enjoy myself for once. A lot of people who haven’t read the books tell me that the movies are fine, that they aren’t confused or lost, and that they completely understand what’s happening. I can appreciate that. I don’t really want to be a hater. In fact, I spent most of the previews making sure my brother was sufficiently calmed since he didn’t like the sixth book much at all and therefore probably wasn’t going to enjoy a movie made of it. Within the first ten minutes, our positions were swapped and it was him trying to convince me that it really wasn’t that bad. I try to shelf my purist fanrage. I really do! It’s just very, very hard for me (apparently).

(this review briefly mentions minor spoilers for HP1-5;
spoilers for HP6: Half-Blood Prince are contained under spoiler tags)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

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