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Ozu is not quite a villain. There isn't exactly a villain or even an antagonist in Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei/The Tatami Galaxy, because with every episode the characters are met and seen from different perspectives. But Ozu is the primary antagonist throughout the series. Even though he's the main character's best friend, he often manages to ruin the "rose colored campus life" the main character seeks and also often ends up in a dress for some reason.
It's not so much that Ozu even means to make the character's life terrible. He just does it because him having a nice life conflicts directly with the main character having one. As it's said in the first episode, it's either the main characters or Ozu who will end up happy, and Ozu seems to win out until the main character (who, yes, does not have a name), gets his shit together and takes control of his own life.
Ozu, though an actual character, and not necessarily a villain, is a metaphor for all the unfortunate stuff that happens to us in life and keeps us down; the thing that always gets in the way from achieving what we really want. And many people have an Ozu. I think he makes for a wonderful villain because EVERYONE technically comes up against him at some point in their lives. Perhaps not in the form of an often dressing wearing co-ed, but somehow, somewhere, they do. He's the antagonist we all know and deal with on a regular basis.
Though I admit, Ozu often comes off as more likable than the main character a lot of time, so that also could be the reason I enjoy his "villainy" so much. While you're screaming at the main character to make better choices in his life already, you're watching Ozu scheme and get his life together in ways that just happen to screw with the main character's. That the main character can't see this can be a little frustrating, but at least the rehashing is fresh every episode and we don't have to sit through another Endless Eight disaster.
Man, I talk a lot. Did anyone besides me even watch this show?
When she was little, Utena Tenjou met a prince after her parents' deaths who saved her life and she decided to become a noble prince and save a princess. Because of this, she disregards rules, society, gender and lots of other general silliness and is just herself. She's strong, noble, brave and knows what she wants. She also has pink hair and wears a kick ass uniform she designed herself to make her look more like a prince. She's amazing with a sword and has a wonderful sense of justice. There is very little I can say about Utena that isn't good. So I won't continue, because it will all just be gushing and squeals.
In other news, I am watching an Adventure Time marathon. Finn and Jake are also my heroes.
Red Garden is a very intriguing terror anime all on it's own, but I think the art is what makes it really special. A lot of people are actually turned off by it. I've seen a lot of comments about the "weird noses" and that the characters look like they're wearing "white face," but I think that's just people being used to their big eyed, tiny nosed animu characters. First of all, the characters are supposed to be European and not Asian. The production team also took a trip to New York to study the surroundings and people (though it's pretty clear they didn't both with the language). The characters might look a lot different, but there's definitely a good reason.
As I mentioned, the show is a terror/horror series, and I think the characters look a little "grotesque" really helps that. The characters look like people, but if necessary, their features can be easily tweaked to make them look monstrous. The odder the features, the more mysterious the character. A lot of viewers expressed being AFRAID of the character Lula, because she had a very large mouth. And she was supposed to be a weird, scary character and not necessarily understood. Hello Kitty has big eyes, a tiny nose and no mouth because people find that cute and relatable; Lula has small eyes and a big nose and mouth because she's off-putting and somewhat upsetting. And she's supposed to be.
So I think the character designer knew exactly what they were doing when they designed the characters to have exaggerated facial features. They wanted to creep you out.
30 Days of Anime, Day 21: Crazy bitches!
Aug. 18th, 2010 11:02 pm
Yandere pretty much come from two places: Higurashi and everywhere else. I never planned on watching Higurashi and I never really saw yanderes "anywhere else" in anything else I had watched. I thought it was creepy how much the fans got off on loli bitches killing each other, but Erik talked me into watching Higurashi. So I watch the first season. He got bored rewatching it halfway through, so I finished it myself.
I didn't really get it at first. I knew there were arcs, but how come they overlapped? Why did the main character suddenly start remembering them later on all of a sudden? It seemed very cop out-ish. But then Rena went nuts.
And how! While in the other arcs the characters went crazy, no one went AS crazy as Rena eventually does. The maggots, the alien invasion theory, the fight on the roof. If you're going to be crazy, you might as well go all out. And Rena certainly did. Where Satoko and Rika just didn't go crazy enough and Mion and Shion pulled all the twin/family drama bullshit, Rena just threw up her hands and went "Nah, Imma just go CRAZY being CRAZY." And then she did.
But I also like her when she's sane. She's got that whole detective thing going on and isn't the helpless derp she comes off as. She's smart, she's skilled and she's persistent. And until she inevitably goes crazy, she's a pretty amazing character. And then she goes crazy and she's even more awesome.
Tl;dr, I totally get why loli bitches going crazy is awesome and I will watch the second season and OVA eventually. 8Db
30 Days of Anime, Day 20: Hey Ladies.
Aug. 17th, 2010 11:31 am
Yeah, I'm gonna go with Ouran. So much shoujo anime is boring, formulaic, misogynist and just plain dumb. If it's not about a girl obsessed with falling in love, it's about a girl obsessed with sex who finds love, or something equally mind numbing. There's no real thought put into it passed the character designs and names, and sometimes it feels like it's being made up as they go along.
Which is why I really like Ouran. There are A LOT of shoujo I could recommend you that does indeed break the above mold, but Ouran is one of the few I've really enjoyed in anime, and not manga, form. It's about a girl who's pretty much asexual, not interested in finding the man of her dreams and considers gender kind of silly. I really admire Haruhi for being so DIFFERENT from the typical shoujo heroine.
The rest of the series is wonderful, as well. All the different characters Haruhi meets are based on shoujo anime stereotypes, but even they aren't what they appear. Most of these characters learn, usually through Haruhi, that being yourself isn't all that bad, and I love that it teaches this lesson to those watching it. The show is also HILARIOUS, which is a big part of it's popularity. I rarely ever laugh while watching anime (that's the culture gap for you), but Ouran is definitely an exception.
I would pretty much recommend this series to anyone, even people who don't watch anime as a rule. It's not that it's without it's flaws (episode 8, hi), but I think it's got a great message that pretty much anyone can get out of it.
I just wanted to get these dumb shit ones out of the way. Then I'll do the actual once a day posting again. Promise.
Day 13: Cosplay of your "Waifu" or "Husbando"
Day 14: Current (or most recent) Anime Wallpaper
Day 15: Post a CuteNeko Cat Girl
No.
Day 16: Post a Kigurumi Cosplay of your Favorite Anime Character
I find those things creepy.
And I think you can see why.
Day 17: Favorite Tsundere
I fucking hate tsundere characters. In anime, this shit is moe. In real life, it's just passive agressive. Tsunderes would be incredibly annoying people in real life. THE END.
Day 18: Something Moe
Your mom.
Day 19: Mandatory Swimsuit Post
Blow me.
That is all.
Day 14: Current (or most recent) Anime Wallpaper
Day 15: Post a Cute
No.
I find those things creepy.
And I think you can see why.
I fucking hate tsundere characters. In anime, this shit is moe. In real life, it's just passive agressive. Tsunderes would be incredibly annoying people in real life. THE END.
Your mom.
Blow me.
That is all.
Gundam. Because it's really the only mech series (multiple) I've enjoyed/seen/bothered with.
I really can't take this meme seriously.
30 Days of Anime, Day 9ish & 10: Idek
Aug. 15th, 2010 12:34 amI'm not going to do Day 9, which was "Saddest Anime Scene." I don't think I've ever cried watching anime, and I somehow doubt I ever will. It's anime, for Christ's sake. Also, I pretty much never cry at anything media related. I'm kind of heartless like that.
So.
Favorite Slice of Life Anime
I legit find that picture hilarious. What the flying fuck, Madarame.
Anyway. Genshiken is indeed my favorite slice of life anime. Perhaps it's the fact that I'm an uber nerd and have a hard time truly relating to realistic storytelling unless it involves nerdity of some kind. If it's SF, fantasy, whatever, I can enjoy it for the non-reality of it. But if it's slice of life and it's normal people? Well, that's just boring.
Genshiken is the story of a bunch of otaku in college who sit around reading manga, watching anime, playing videos and making model sets. So it's kind of what I do as a college student and I find I relate to many of the characters, even though it's best female character is kind of shallow bitch. (Ohno and the self-hating otaku girl do not interest me, and I hate their stupid fucking feud. I kind of hate that the creator made them basically battle each other for the 'token girl' spot. Whatever.) I guess what I like about it is that I totally GET IT. Not a lot of media comes along that goes "HEY, I TOTALLY GET YOU" unless you're a gorgeous supermodel spy or something.
I loved season one and there were some episodes of season two that were really hilarious, but I kind of wish they'd shoved the OVA and the second season together and skipped over some of the boring drama bullshit. It was like, it's about a fucking nerd club. I liked it a lot better when they were actually interacting, being dorks and creating emotion through interaction rather than when they suddenly started passive-aggressively fighting and graduating and creating all cop-out emotional shit.
Lmfao, wow, this post actually makes it sound like I really DON'T like Genshiken all that much, but I really do. When it wasn't straying away from it's core, it was really funny and occasionally even moving. And I enjoyed it because I totally got it. Nerds, man.
PS: I saw Scott Pilgrim. I was happy with it. Haters to the left. The end.
So.
I legit find that picture hilarious. What the flying fuck, Madarame.
Anyway. Genshiken is indeed my favorite slice of life anime. Perhaps it's the fact that I'm an uber nerd and have a hard time truly relating to realistic storytelling unless it involves nerdity of some kind. If it's SF, fantasy, whatever, I can enjoy it for the non-reality of it. But if it's slice of life and it's normal people? Well, that's just boring.
Genshiken is the story of a bunch of otaku in college who sit around reading manga, watching anime, playing videos and making model sets. So it's kind of what I do as a college student and I find I relate to many of the characters, even though it's best female character is kind of shallow bitch. (Ohno and the self-hating otaku girl do not interest me, and I hate their stupid fucking feud. I kind of hate that the creator made them basically battle each other for the 'token girl' spot. Whatever.) I guess what I like about it is that I totally GET IT. Not a lot of media comes along that goes "HEY, I TOTALLY GET YOU" unless you're a gorgeous supermodel spy or something.
I loved season one and there were some episodes of season two that were really hilarious, but I kind of wish they'd shoved the OVA and the second season together and skipped over some of the boring drama bullshit. It was like, it's about a fucking nerd club. I liked it a lot better when they were actually interacting, being dorks and creating emotion through interaction rather than when they suddenly started passive-aggressively fighting and graduating and creating all cop-out emotional shit.
Lmfao, wow, this post actually makes it sound like I really DON'T like Genshiken all that much, but I really do. When it wasn't straying away from it's core, it was really funny and occasionally even moving. And I enjoyed it because I totally got it. Nerds, man.
PS: I saw Scott Pilgrim. I was happy with it. Haters to the left. The end.
30 Days of Anime, Day 8: Epic is relative
Aug. 13th, 2010 07:37 pmEither I watch some boring anime, or my epic scale is way off the charts because I couldn't think of a single scene that I considered truly "epic." So I cheated and went with an ending sequence instead. Gundam 00's second season was kind of completely ridiculous, but I admit the EDs made up for some of it with their hinting at what was going to happen next. If you compare the second to last and last EDs, they kind of go together and finish what the other started in terms of storytelling. Anyway, it's Yuna Ito's "Trust You" playing over some truly gorgeous animation in the final ED that I find "epic." It's also kind of sad, reminding you that things are coming to an end, though I think it was a decent way to put the show out of it's misery... Yes, I know there's a movie. No need to bring that up.
For some reason I couldn't find JUST a video of the "Trust You" ED, so here's all the ending scenes. "Trust You" is the last one.
Look at this fucking douchebag with his fucking Justin Beiber hair! LOOK AT HIM. Don't you just want to punch his douchey face? I do. I cannot stand Light Yagami.
The thing about Light is that he's supposed to be a super genius. He's supposedly smart enough to evade the world's greatest detective (Not Batman, but L. Batman would take his Death Note, punch him in the face and make him pee his pants. L just kind of eats.), the police and pretty much the entire world, and, you know, get away with murder. The problem with this is that Light is just a douche. He's so smart, but not smart enough to realize using a Death Note is probably a ~bad idea~. That, and overreacting and getting emotionally involved are big problems when you're trying to be God. Old Testament God managed it, and he was an overemotional kid too. Jeez, Yagami, walk it off.
And I guess he's supposed to be a sociopath, but he just kind of comes off as a competitive dick. He's constantly trying to out smart L, fix the world and finish his vocabulary quiz before you do. Not to mention he's really just desperate for attention. If he stuck to killing criminals and shutting the fuck up about it, he would never have gotten caught. He didn't have to kill the guy impersonating L on television or the people involved in his investigation once they got too close. Getting involved with the investigation at all was a terrible idea. If he could have just kept him emotions in check, he would have been fine.
What's worse is that some fans really do think that he's so smart and try to emulate him. Really? You wanna end up dead for being Hitler with magical stationary? Fine. I guess he appeals to the angry 15 year old boy in many of us, but so do characters like Rorschach and the Punisher. And you're not really supposed to like them. At least Frank Castle and Walter Kovacs had legit reasons to be crazy. Light was just bored.
I could go on forever about why Death Note is a big pile of stupid parading around as genius, how Light is the most annoying fictional creation on this earth and how I want to punch the creators for this bullshit, as well as all the fuck random misogyny, but I'll spare you. Light Yagami is fucking ANNOYING. If wou ever meet someone like him, check his book bag and take away all this notebooks.
Y so srs?
LOL. So. When I first read this question Taiga immediately came to mind. And when I asked Erik, her's was the first name out of his mouth. So I guess I'm like Taiga. And in some ways, I am. I'm short/small and can be kind of a hot head when pissed off. (I almost smacked a dude at The Buffalo Exchange this weekend, but that's a story for another time.) I try not to, but I guess I'm a little tsundere as well (you'll hear my thoughts on them later during this meme) and I don't have much in the way of tits. Also, I have a guy that makes me dinner. :3
Also, for those of you who've known me long enough, I used to go by tigereye/tigereyeY3K and I still love kitties, big and small. One could make an argument for calling me a "plamtop tiger." X3
(Erik also said I reminded him of Haruhi Suzumiya, but probably only because I apparently make him feel like Kyon. Hee. ^^')
If I had to pick an anime character I want to be like, it would probably Haruhi Fujioka from Ouran. Not in the having to entertain rich bitches because I'm poor way, but in the way she's innocent and doesn't make me want to punch her in the face. Like, she's unconcerned with gender/gender stereotypes, poor vs. rich, things like that. She's so laid back in Ouran's crazy atmosphere and I wish I could be that calm in the middle of storms.
Yeah, thus far, my favorite anime is Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, which probably says a lot about how seriously I take this stuff. At it's core, SZS is the story of a suicidal teacher who is stuck with a class of a crazies and weirdos. In a broader sense, it's a lot of social commentary, anime spoofs, obscure references and puns. Oh, the puns. And I don't get any of them, because I don't speak Japanese.
There's very little consistency in this series. The entire first season I was waiting for a plot to emerge after all the characters were introduced, and when Sensei was hit by a bus in the second to last episode I was like "Oh, HERE we go." And then the last episode was just more of the same classroom antics. And that's when I think I finally got it.
What I particularly like about this show is that all the characters really are weird/insane/crazy/whatever, but don't come off as the usual "weird" anime stereotypes. And because of that, the characters are much more interesting than anime characters from normal series where people are supposed to have personalities and there's a plot and not just running jokes and puns. I like to think of it as a very dark Lucky Star, with less food and more attempted murder.
The other thing I really love about this series is the music. There is so much of it, and so many kinds. For those of you who haven't watched this show and probably won't, at least treat yourself to the opening and ending songs. Which ones? ALL OF THEM. They are excellent and the accompanying animation is some serious eye candy. But if I had to pick, I'd tell you to watch these:
But really? They're all good.
30 Days of Anime, Day 1: And I cave.
Aug. 7th, 2010 11:04 am
Yep. You guessed it.
I actually put a lot of thought into this. I didn't want to have to post Pokemon, since Pokemon was just about everyone in my age group's first anime, but when I thought about it, I realized it really was. I literally hadn't seen any other anime before Pokemon. I think their was a fairy tale cartoon they played on Nick Jr. when I was super little that was apparently anime, but I don't remember that in the least. Pokemon was my true first, and just like everyone else, I watched the show, had the cards and played the Gameboy games. I never really played the card game because none of my friends really took the time to learn it, and I only ever played the Blue, Red and Yellow games, and not even ON a Gameboy; my dad downloaded an emulator and the games for me to play on the computer. I'm pretty sure I never finished any of them, either.
I really was super into this show, though. I shipped Ash and Misty, I wrote fanfiction in my head, I had the books and stickers and all that crap, some of which I'm still trying to get rid of all these years later. (I actually ended up giving most of my Pokemon cards away to some kids at one of my old jobs because I couldn't figure out how to get rid of them otherwise.)
Close seconds are, of course, Digimon (I was SO deep in this fandom, oh my God), Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z, and only because they all played at the same time on Cartoon Network/Fox. But I'm still pretty sure Pokemon was the first anime I ever watched. And though I kind of despise it now (oh, the money it sucked), I have to be grateful that it was my gateway drug into non-collectible card game anime.
And I still have a few Japanese cards that I'm probably never going to give away. They were of really cute characters and I have yet to out grow adorable.
( the meme )