Monthly Archives: July 2010

Usurper of the Sun by Housuke Nojiri, and why Haikasoru is my new best friend

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If it weren’t for certain people sharing the updates via GRSI this would’ve been one of those things that slipped under my radar: Viz setting up a line of titles that are a marked departure from their usual light/graphic novels. Haikasoru appears to be geared towards a more, dare I say it, *serious* readership who are interested in their usual output but a bit more besides. The promotional blurb speaks of “Space opera, dark fantasy, hard science.” Delicious.

Needless to say, this could be the best (or worst, when the time comes to move into a new place) thing to happen to my bookcase in months. To kick things off I picked up Usurper of the Sun by Housuke Nojiri, which went by the tagline “Arthur C Clarke meets Haruki Murakami”, presumably because there aren’t many other Japanese novelists who are familiar to English-speaking readers. Call me cynical, but I’m always wary of advert-speak that promises anything that good.

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Reading stats: 919 words, 1 image; estimated reading time 3:41 mins

News just in: waffling idiot tries to solve the fansub debate

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A recent comment thread on GRSI, plus this bit of news and my experience with this site, has led me to ask myself a question so bleeding obvious that I feel stupid asking it. I’ll stress right now that I’m not a professional computer programmer (why else would I be using a stock WP theme?) and I don’t follow the industry too closely (Omo does some very insightful and in-depth analysis on the subject though) but even so, I do wonder: I’ve noticed a potential solution that would help fans AND make money for the industry…two facts that ought to mean it should’ve been done already. Only it hasn’t.

The current attempt at a solution to the fansub/piracy problem is through the streaming with region-locking and paid subscriptions, i.e. Crunchyroll’s model. I’m not aiming to criticise what CR are doing here: they did great things in giving Eve no Jikan exposure, made last year’s Global Shinkai Day even more special and are so far the only independent site that has made a high-profile attempt to seek the middle ground.

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Reading stats: 1276 words, 2 images; estimated reading time 5:06 mins

Cat Shit One could be more than just rabbits with guns, but that’s fine for now

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I’ve been hearing rumblings about this one for quite some time but since my brain makes connections in the most arcane and awkward ways I attached a bizarre preconception to it (something to do with it sounding similar to Cat Soup, which is a show I’ve considered watching for the Yuasa factor but never summoned the courage to try…go figure). It turns out to be nothing like whatever I expected, anyway. It’s all about rabbits with guns.

Cat Shit One is very, very different from pretty much everything else around right now, which is reason enough for me to recommend it on its own. The idea of anthropomorphised rabbits rescuing hostages from armed terrorist camels is indeed absurd but it was surprisingly easy for me to forget the sight of cottontails twitching prior to an all-out firefight because it was, with this quirk aside, hell of a lot of fun. So much so that I was able to accept the concept and simply enjoy the action.

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Reading stats: 946 words, 3 images; estimated reading time 3:47 mins

Ookami-san and High School of the Dead first impressions

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I try to avoid the lowest-common-denominator trashy titles what with my free time being at such a premium and with the Backlog being the way it is, but there’s no harm in giving new shows a fighting chance. Long story short, there’s a lot of stuff around that doesn’t interest me and I still haven’t found the opportunity to write some deep ‘n’ meaningful editorial for a while. I haven’t got as far as the latest NoitaminA offerings yet though, so all isn’t lost. Legservice, boobs and zombies ought to be a good place to start though, right?

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Reading stats: 492 words, 3 images; estimated reading time 1:58 mins

I’m late to the You Can (not) Advance party and spotted familiar faces, but…

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Considering the challenges in the ‘feature-length retelling of the TV show’ concept, I sometimes wonder why the studios bother. They need a keen eye for what to retain and what to leave out in order to condense the storyline effectively, it has to entertain the viewers on its own merits so we can momentarily forget the old version but at the same time it has to remain true to what made the original good enough to be worth retelling.

RahXephon for example suffered greatly from the condensed plotline issue and Eureka Seven lost a lot of the spirit of the TV show, so both were disappointing to me. The Evangelion rebuild in particular is an undertaking I personally wouldn’t enjoy being responsible for since it’ll piss off a significant proportion of the fanbase regardless of what the production team do. Over the past decade and a half it’s bred so many conflicting opinions that whatever approach is taken, it’ll hit somebody’s sore spot square-on.

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Reading stats: 1253 words, 4 images; estimated reading time 5:01 mins