Omorka's Lair

Behold: a moe Moe.

Went to the Evangelion 1.0 reboot movie with the Spouse for Movie Night. The theater said they'd sold out, but there was an empty seat next to me the whole movie, and it wasn't the only one, so I don't know what was up. I'm not the hugest Eva fan, but I found it enjoyable. The new voice casting of Kaworu is squee-inducing. I spent the whole thing trying to figure out who Kensuke was in Neon Revelation Phantasmion, and am currently hypothesizing that he's Louis. Tiffany Grant was there, and was called out by our host; she pointed out that she was "Sir Not-appearing-in-this-film," as we haven't met Asuka by the end of the movie.

The Alamo was much better than last time, food-wise, meaning both that the food was more edible and that the service was more prompt. It's still too far to go for me to want to see anything there on a regular basis, but I'm much happier than I was the last two times.

So, the Spouse and I were both tired during dinner, and the inevitable happened - our fandom interests crashed and crossed over. The result: TOTAL CRACK! Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), it's more suited to fanart than fanfic - which means that I probably won't even attempt it.

So, just so that everyone knows what sorts of batshit crazy we are when it's just the two of us and our peculiar media obsessions, I present: Neon Revelation Phantasmion.

( No, you really don't want to see what's behind the cut. )

I don't normally post AMVs, so this goes ( behind the cut - warning, SLASH, bad music, and censored nudity )

Also, I started watching this because [blather about current fan obsession ad nauseum most of you are sick of me talking about this by now] and the Spouse happened to overhear me, so ( A plump Canandian DVD reviewer talks about the Firehouse Box Set behind the cut )

Voice Actors Gone Wild? No, just some pretty funny parodies.

( Embrace Your Inner Otaku )

There's a small cluster of kids who sit in the breezeway that connects the West building (where the floater's office is) to the North building (where most of my B-day classrooms, and, more importantly, the elevator are) every morning. I have accidentally hit them with my little rolling cart a couple of times. I'm detouring around a girl sitting right in the path from one door to the other when I hear "No, dude, they're going to lock Kyo up on confinement when he graduates."

I look to my left, where a young man is holding a copy of Furuba #8 (I think; It was hard to read the number with his hand in the way, and I could only see the spine), and, as I'm hauling the door open, say, "no, I don't think so."

The girl sitting on the ground rolls her eyes and huffs, "Miss, it's only a book." I glance in her direction and respond "I know, hon." Then I return to the guy with the manga and follow up with "I think Tohru will figure out how to fix it, don't you?"

His first expression communicates something along the lines of "I cannot believe those words just came out of this woman's mouth." Then he breaks into a huge grin. As I pull my cart through the door, the girl on the floor shouts "Holy crap! You read this stuff?" While I'm tempted to respond "well, yes, but I prefer the anime," instead I flash her the peace-sign-as-OK-marker, smile, and haul my roller cart on down the hallway.

I'm not going to be able to watch this show subtitled! We had to go back and re-watch the scene where Shinji meets the Last Angel in Japanese, so I could hear which names and honorifics they were using, and realized that I'm not going to be able to hear Yukito speaking Shinji's lines - that voice actor is so solidly dear, sweet Yuki for me, hearing him wemble and scream would just be Too Much.

Yes, CardCaptor Sakura has spoiled me for Evangelion. Hmm . . . considering the world-driving forces in both series, that's actually probably a Darned Good Thing.

As my long-term readers know, memeslayer and I have been 'round the horn a couple of times about several anime shows that he likes and that I can't stand. Love Hina is the prototypical example. Oh, I can list reams and reams of things in that particular show that I'm offended by - the stereotypical views of men and women, the casual violence, the implicit racism of the Kaolla Su character, etc., etc., etc. And I can do the same for a large number of other shows I can't stand. However, while discussing with the Spouse why I wasn't thrilled with the episode of an old (late 1980s) anime that wileras brought over tonight, I finally found a connecting thread for a large number (not all, but many) anime I can't stand.

If the main character is all of:

male

clumsy (either socially or physically, but usually both)

clueless

stupid (and I'm fairly harsh about what I consider stupid)

And the show is both:

shonen

either a romance or action with a strong romantic subplot

Then it has to have seriously badass plot, world, and character development or I'm simply not interested.

Unfortunately, this seems to link in with what Memeslayer was saying while he was here about the "audience identification character." Said AIC appears to have to be at least three of male, clumsy, clueless, and stupid.

Interestingly, if the main character is clumsy, clueless, and stupid, but female, it doesn't bother me - see also Fruits Basket and Maho Tsukai Tai!. Also, male, clumsy, and clueless are not sufficient to ruin a show for me if the character shows some intelligence; see RahXephon (although he's only socially clumsy, not so much physically). Even being a harem anime is not enough by itself - but the hero character for almost all harem shows meets the above definition.

Why? Not sure, although it has something to do with whether I can manage to root for a character (not identify with them - that doesn't happen very often - but care what the hell happens to them in the course of the show). Having characters I care about is a big issue for me for any show, anime or not. (I can't watch Azumanga Daioh because there's no plot at all, the world's not interesting, and I don't care about any of the characters, despite it not fitting the above formula.) The prototypical AIC is a character I want to flunk out of my class, not root for; in fact, on some level, I want to warn the female objects of the AIC's attention that he's likely to turn abusive later in the relationship. (That female character tend to slap the AIC a lot doesn't help - for me, it means the relationship is already violent and therefore something for both participants to run from, not something for the show to celebrate.)

So, thus my preference for shojo if the show's a romance. Note that if there's not a strong romantic plot or subplot, the above doesn't matter that much; I can watch and enjoy shonen action or drama without the above getting in the way, although having non-stupid, non-clueless characters helps.

The other thing that makes me hate a show is random visual crap. Between that and the above, my very low opinion of FLCL should surprise no one . . .

Hmm . . .speaking of alchemy, finally got around to watching the first two episodes of Full Metal Alchemist today.

Interesting. Doctor Borealis likes this show already.