Friday, April 21, 2006

"I insult you"
So I picked up a copy of J.L. Austin's "How To Do Things With Words" with a B&N gift card yesterday, and I'm already about halfway through it. Shame on me for not paying more attention to so-called "analytic" philosophy than I have been (so far the only other ones I've really paid much attention to have been Russell, Wittgenstein, Strawson, Searle, Kripke, Rawls, a little bit of Dreyfus, and uh Whitehead if he counts [I think he does]). Although, uh, Austin seems to be one of those people who appeals all the way across the spectrum, and I'll probably end up abusing him in ways that none of these dudes would approve of.

I'm also making no headway at all on the goddamned Contributions.

Oh, and I'm going to have to amend my initial judgment of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. It takes a hard left turn in the middle of the second episode and has really become a completely different series (kind of a suspense thriller deal), although it's still very very good.
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Wednesday, April 19, 2006

new anime season summaries
Well, the new season's started up and the fansubs are beginning to roll out; interestingly, the comedies and guilty pleasure shows seem to be winning out this time around, as opposed to the action/adventure types from the previous. Anyways, here's my brief snap-judgment summaries of what I've seen so far, and whether or not I'll keep watching the things.


Soul Link. Wacky romantic harem misadventures - IN SPACE!! Seriously folks, I love a good misogynistic accidental molestation show as much as the next guy, but this show is like where the harem coffee grinds have been used three times already but end up producing one more pot anyways because someone was too lazy to change the filter. STATUS: TOSSED

KIBA. I don't know what this is; I gave it about ten minutes, reached the point where the caring adult asked the half-nuts (and apparently superpowered) delinquent why he had destroyed a fence, and decided that I could probably do better. STATUS: TOSSED

Strawberry Panic. Comes across as a cynical Marimite clone. FREE HINT GUYS: none of us dudes who dug Marimite did so because all the girls were explicitly gay or because of the pretty school uniforms. STATUS: CONDITIONAL TOSSED

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. THE show to beat this season. It's possible this thing may end up being the most influential anime since Azumanga Daioh: it's really that good and that original. This is the story of a schoolgirl who is not interested in associating herself with normal humans - only aliens, superheroes, or time travellers. The first episode alone, which is done to mimic a low-budget fan film, is the kind of shot in the arm the industry only gets every few years or so. STATUS: KEEPER

Dai Mahou Touge. This season's answer to Dokuro-chan, swinging wildly between extreme cuteness and impossibly bloody violence. Also features the best schoolgirl gang since Project A-ko. STATUS: KEEPER

Zegapain. Stubbornly formulaic, uninteresting mecha show with incredibly ugly CG work and a GREAT NAME. It doesn't make it worth watching, but seriously... Z E G A P A I N !!! STATUS: TOSSED

Ouran High School Host Club. Guilty pleasure of the season, part the first. In a school populated by rich f***s there's a club devoted to collecting male fetishes for service in entertaining the local girls; by chance, a poor young "gentleman" (you'll see) is forced to join up. This thing has got more sexual energy to it than a team of 14-year-old males with high speed internet access. STATUS: KEEPER

xxxHOLiC TV. This looked vaguely interesting, but not to my taste. Schoolboy plagued by eldrich forces makes a deal with a lady and her extremely cute, possibly gay little girl associates to help them out. Well, if I hear good things, I might go back to the show and try it again. STATUS: CONDITIONAL TOSSED

Utawarerumono. Fantasy show, starring a dude with amnesia stuck in a mask and, more importantly, a bunch of incredibly cute doggiegirls with very sensitive tails. I might take this up if I didn't have so many other shows already, but sadly I'm not letting it in the cut. I'll keep an eye on it, though. STATUS: CONDITIONAL TOSSED

NANA. Hard core shoujo. The story of two girls named Nana, one a punk-lookin' rocker type and the other a fashionable boy-crazy model (both drawn in as pretty a fashion as possible), get an apartment together in Tokyo. I have a weakness for this kind of thing, folks. STATUS: KEEPER

Makai Senki Disgaea. Never played the game, but I'm already pretty much completely in love with Etna and Flonne. STATUS: KEEPER

Air Gear. Oh, christ, a shounen series about rollerblading. "I CAN OUT-BLADE YOU ANYTIME" "HAW HAW!! I'D LIKE TO SEE YOU TRY, LITTLE BOY" "GHHHHR (FRUSTERATED)" STATUS: TOSSED

High School Girls. Guilty pleasure of the season, part the second. Raw, unadulturated fan service, cut and processed with clear additions from female writers on the staff (on, for instance, the difficulty had by girls taking urinalysis tests). Also contains the best glasses girl of the season so far, outside of Haruhi. STATUS: CONDITIONAL KEEPER

Kyou no 5 no 2. Guilty pleasure of the season, part the third. Also raw, unadulturated fan service, but contains one of the best stables of harem girls in recent years. Plus: OVA, so it's short. STATUS: KEEPER

Simoun. I don't have any idea what this is; apparently girls working in the clergy pilot really neat atmospheric fighters which are powered by said pilot girls kissing. Needless to say I had a great deal of enthusiasm for this at first, and it was all drained by the show finally ending up confusing, alternately predictable and random in the wrong places, and quite boring. Oh, well, I guess girls kissing isn't actually enough to get a show by on its own. STATUS: TOSSED

RAY the Animation. Apparently a sequel of sorts to Black Jack, which I never saw. It's charming enough with its surgery-oriented drama backed up by martial arts sequences; I'll give it another few eps to decide. STATUS: CONDITIONAL KEEPER

Black Lagoon. Best action series of the season so far. a bunch of pirates (including a gun-happy girl in cut-offs whom I think I've fallen in love with) kidnap a salaryman while swiping some secret data from said salaryman's company; salaryman and the pirates bond, and the company tries to off the whole lot of them. Unrelenting dumb, stylish fun. STATUS: KEEPER

Princess Princess. Guilty pleasure of the season, part the fourth. Okay, cards on the table, it's a show about an all-male school where the prettiest of the boys have to dress up as girls and parade around getting looked up. I have no idea who greenlit this, but I find it completely hypnotic. There goes the last drops of normal sexuality that I had, I guess. STATUS: CONDITIONAL KEEPER

Tokko: Devil's Awaken. Supernatural/Horror cop show with big-breasted little sister running around in underwear for no possibly justifiable reason. Not interesting. STATUS: TOSSED

Himawari! It's not that I'm opposed to shows about ninja girls and their dumb teacher, but someone out there has to have done one better than this. STATUS: TOSSED

Renkin San-kyuu Magical Pokaan. Somehow this comes across like a version of Bottle Fairies starring a vampire, a werewolf, a cyborg, and a witch, all of whom are, of course, cute girls. I pretty much have to keep watching this one, if only to fill my cute quota for the season. Also has the best op sequence of the season. STATUS: KEEPER

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. Well, this begins with a fairly gruesome murder scene, then segues its way with no transition at all into probably the best slapstick comedy/harem show of the season. I'm hoping it doesn't drop the second at the expense of the first. STATUS: CONDITIONAL KEEPER
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Sunday, April 16, 2006

watashi icchae! (ICCHAE!!)
As an unrepentent Halko Momoi and Under17 fan, I offer the Popotan game promo and the Popotan TV op. These may be the rockingest songs ever written about dandelions, actually.




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Saturday, April 15, 2006

C'MON LET'S DANCE C'MON LET'S DANCE BABY


(Note: not the real op, but pay attention to the choreography in that ed. OOKII NA - YUME -YUME - SUKI DESHOU)

(Also: we've had what, about TWENTY new articles in the past week or so? Holy god, I know Kastom can't be writing ALL of these things...)
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Friday, April 14, 2006

WIR SIND DIE ROBOTER


My favorite part is the reaction shot of the crowd afterwards, who really seem to have no idea what they have just seen.
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Thursday, April 13, 2006

holy god the kneesocks

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Saturday, April 8, 2006

Heidegger is hard
So I finally got around to starting on Heidegger's Contributions to Philosophy. My god, just when I'd reached the point where I thought I could get just about anything the guy threw at me... well, suffice it to say that this is probably the second most difficult book I've ever tried to read, outside of Hegel's Phenomenology. Actually they're probably both difficult for the same reason. Both books, as far as I can understand, seem to be a kind of JOURNEY. Although, it's a very strange kind of journey where, and here's the hard part, the END of the journey (for Hegel: absolute knowledge, science; for Heidegger: be-ing, the overcoming of metaphysics towards the holding sway of being as ereignis) has to be where the journey is SEEN from. The journey is the self-discovery of the journey's end as it travels away from the place where it is differentiated from itself and towards what it essentially is; however, the journey can only be understood if read from its own conclusion.

I'm not sure if that even makes sense.

Anyways, I put in a few hours on the Kasimasi thing, which is now VERY late so I guess I'm skipping a month. It's up to about 2000 words; here's hoping I can keep this one under 20 pages.
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Wednesday, April 5, 2006

NOT ACTUALLY AN OP THIS TIME


Aaron Funk went and sliced the hell out of the Elgar Cello Concerto. You might want to turn your speakers up for this.
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Tuesday, April 4, 2006

KICK ATTACK DENKO PUNCH

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Monday, April 3, 2006

Cute Twins Aerial Circus


Disclaimer: the rest of Futakoi Alternative is nothing like this.
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