Tuesday, December 4, 2007

The Protomen

Last Saturday, a few friends and I went to Nashville to see a Nashville-based band called The Protomen. To those who have some knowledge of the games would guess, they are based off of the Mega Man games, primarily the early ones. This band performs a rock opera that chronicles Mega Man continuing the fight of his brother Proto Man, leading to the fateful encounter and fight of the two. It's a very dark futuristic look upon the world in which Dr Wily and his robots rule over a humanity that is too fearful and timid to stand up for itself. This band is really good. As their songs are a rock opera that tell a story, there are also on-stage performance elements that make seeing this band live a must, such as the actual confrontation between Mega Man (the vocalist) and Proto Man. I saw their show at MTAC this past April, and it blew me away. This is coming from a guy who isn't really a music buff or has played much of the original Mega Man games. It was even better Saturday because I could actually understand the words they were saying a little better, as well as actually knowing their old songs well enough to sing along a lot. I recommend this band to anyone who has an interest in Mega Man games or rock operas. You can visit their site at http://www.protomen.com/ and their MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/theprotomen

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Friday, November 30, 2007

Presentation on the spot

My teacher for my Global News and World Media Cultures class asked me to bring an example of anime Thursday that wasn't particularly kiddy, mainly just not DBZ, Sailor Moon or Spirited Away, the ones she has experience with. I went to class with my Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in a Pocket to play the ending, which is actually kind of a sad and depressing ending, and I felt it met her requirement of a more mature, less kid-friendly series. Anyway, I went to class, expecting to just show the clip while she gave some words. I ended up giving an entire presentation ad-lib on anime, fansubs, what an OAV is, differences between anime and American works and creators, influence on American works and so on. It was actually kind of interesting. I talked longer than I expected to, which is usually the opposite, and I didn't even know I would be giving a presentation in the first place. I even talked to one of the students afterwards. I did a much better job on this presentation that I made up completely on the spot than I did for my group presentation for the same class I actually worked on that I did Tuesday. Not just in content, but my manner of speaking and how I carried myself was a bit better. My voice wasn't as wavering this time. It helps to have an interest in what you're talking about. Now I just have to get around to doing that 8-10 page paper for that class on anime fandom here in the states. I'll probably narrow that some though with a large emphasis of the MTSU Anime Club since relating it to the campus should help make it a bit more familiar or relatable, but not by much.

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Wednesday, November 21, 2007

What To Do

Ever since I kind of revived my MyOtaku account, I've been wondering what I should use this particular blog for. I use my LiveJournal, and by extension my Facebook, for my personal blogs. I use my MySpace for, well, whatever the hell MySpace is used for. Since I don't really need another personal blog, what do I use this for? Then, I figured, I've been trying to keep up more with industry news (if that's what you call ANN and here and whatever else is currently in my Anime folder in my Google Reader), and this is a more anime-geared blog, so I figure my posts here should be more anime related. I guess that much is evident with most of my last few posts being of series I've been watching. I might get into some stuff later on my views on fansubs and stuff. I'm going to start working on a paper for my World News and Media Culture on the topic of the American Anime culture, so I expect good bits of that to make into here. Maybe other things about my anime club and MTAC as well Anyway, speaking of anime. I recently finished Eureka 7. By that, I mean I finished the last 12 episodes I said I had left here all in one night. It was a very warm and touching ending to this great love story filled with character growth and relationship challenges from multiple characters, not just the main two. Plus, the pretty cool mechs with their interesting skyboarding techniques and entertaining combat scenes served as a great icing to the cake. I really enjoyed it all. The anime series I'm currently on would be Gundam 00 and Genshiken 2. Gundam 00 is doing pretty well in my eyes. I like the political background to it, and there are enough interesting characters to keep my attention. Plus, it not being SEED is a big help. Genshiken 2 is doing the first series and the manga it's all based off of justice. I'm still very amused by this series. Some of it, episode 5 in particular, handle certain scenarios possibly better than the manga did. Currently reading Mobile Suit Gundam: Ecole du Ciel. Taking place in UC 0085, the same time line as the original series and right before Zeta Gundam, it adds some extra light on the exploitation of newtypes by the various organizations. After reading the first couple of volumes, it gave me a real "Gunbuster taking place in UC" vibe with its young female lead, an older male role model with some mysterious connection to her, a best friend, a rival, and a young boy she has a crush on, and that's perfectly fine with me. I'm just kind of worried I'll read it too quickly while at home for Thanksgiving and have to wait, but that's always an issue. I guess I'll post again later if some other topic crosses my mind.

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Monday, November 19, 2007

ADA and Anime Scheduling Concerns

This weekend's All-Day-Anime Day went fairly well. The "How to Make an AMV" panel went pretty well. There was a decent audience, and it seemed to go smoothly, aside from the slow start and a few bumps all due to technical issues which shouldn't be a problem next time. It really renewed my faith at doing member-run panels at ADAs. I assume the Smash Bros tournament went well too. I say assume because Phil was running that one, and I haven't heard him say that it went badly, so I'm going with good. Today, I failed in getting a ride to the MTAC volunteer meeting, opening myself up to Cole getting on to me for quite a while about getting a car. I did have some good discussions about club business with some friends. A good bit had to do with my views with how we should decide to show stuff and with licensing companies and their anime club support programs. I don't particularly like the fact that we really don't have a set anime viewing schedule. Polls are one thing, but even our running series, if we really have any, are so sporadic that plenty of times, we don't know what we're showing until the day of the meeting. I would like to just pick a couple of running series, but I get insecure about even just a couple of people showing distaste that I start backing down some. Even the show that a majority of the people in the club like, I'm hesitant to continue because there's a small faction that doesn't. This really shouldn't be so hard, but there's just such a wide variety of tastes and disinterest in other tastes in our club. I know I can't please everyone, but it especially hurts when some of those people you can't make happy are friends. I would like some schedule stability, which would require picking and sticking to series, so that 1) I can put that up on a site so people will basically know what we will be showing all semester, and 2) it would be much easier if we ever start asking permission for the licensed stuff we watch. I get paranoid about us not doing it, and if we start doing bigger stuff as a club and join licensing companies' anime club support programs like ADV's Anime Advocates or Funimation's Operation Anime, I'm worried that will draw attention. Luckily, most of what we show is still unlicensed, but there's a couple of things that we've shown a good bit of that are. As I said, I get increasingly paranoid. I still hate the whole idea of asking permission for screenings that are free and open to the public like ours are.

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Sunday, November 11, 2007

Kotetsushin Jeeg and some Genshiken

I finished Kotetsushin Jeeg on Friday. It's a decent 13-episode mecha series that very much has an old-school super robot feel with plenty of hot blood and yelling. That's always a good thing, especially since it's a sequel to a 1970s Go Nagai series Kotetsu Jeeg, making it even more fitting. You don't need to have seen the original series though since it's not quite a direct sequel. Some liberties are taken from the original story, and enough back story is explained to fill in newcomers. There's some depth, but not much. It's good for watching a giant robot fight, and the characters are decent as well, although not too original if that would turn you off. All in all, it was a fun watch, and at 13 episodes, it's a fun watch that isn't time consuming. Also, I've now seen the first four episodes of Genshiken 2. It's a great addition to the series, worthy of the first series and the original manga. There are some changes done due to when characters were introduced and other reasons that may actually work better than originally in the manga.

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Sunday, October 21, 2007

Death Note Dub Last Night

I was pleased with the dub. I was worried about hearing Amuro Ray coming out of Light's mouth since it's the same English VA, but he worked out better than I thought. He seemed to have the innocent honor student side and the megalomaniac side quite well. Ryuk was good too, but I was less worried about him in the first place. The overall translation was satisfying as well. The only issue is that the first episode pretty much just has Light and Ryuk as primary characters that say anything. L's VA doesn't have that much work behind him, none that I can recall listening to, so I'll be interested to hear how he sounds.

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Saturday, October 13, 2007

New Stuff I've Seen

New anime season started. I've only seen a couple of things. Genshiken season 2 looks just as great as usual. Great Gundam reference in it. Picks up right where the OVA left off, so the series transitions straight from season 1 to the OVAs to season 2. Gundam 00 seems to have had a good start, and the best thing: it's not a SEED series. It's great for such a Gundam fanboy as myself to see a good new series, and I hope it lives up to that. Goshuushousama Ninomiya-kun looked very funny. It's going to have plenty of fan service for the guys, from scantily-clad females to kicking polar bears in the face, all in the first episode, which I enjoyed. Dragonaut -The Resonance- was ok. The first episode wasn't really impressive or attention grabbing, and it didn't really hint to anything that would make it do that later. CLANNAD is from the same company that did Haruhi and Kanon. I didn't like the first ep as much as Haruhi, but I liked it a lot more than Kanon. The main character actually has a personality. He seems pessimistic and annoyed at people, which is more fun to watch than the guy from Kanon. There's some other stuff I've heard good things from, so I'll have to get to those later. Stuff I'm still working on: Eureka 7: I need to get the last 12 episodes so I can finally finish it. I've really liked what I've seen so far, so I'm looking forward to the ending. Kamen Rider Den-O: Not an anime. It's a tokusatsu series, along with the Super Sentai franchise. This is the first Kamen Rider series I've gotten into, and it gets better and better. I like the different rider forms and the characters that go with them. Plus, it has a good amount of humor. It's less dark than some previous Kamen Rider series that I need to go back and watch. That's all for now.

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Thursday, October 4, 2007

With each rotation, moving forward just a bit. That is a drill.

Wow. Over two months since the last post. Anyway, my big anime of the summer, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, just finished this weekend. I've been keeping up with this series every week, watching the subs as soon as they came out. I must say, I was thoroughly impressed with the entire series, all 27 episodes. It even had an awesome ending. Plus, it's very quotable. Trust me, if you like giant robots and ridiculousness and Gainax craziness (more FLCL crazy and less Eva crazy), then you should give this series a try.

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Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Posting at Work

The only good thing about getting to work early is that not many people are here, so I don't actually have to work much...unless someone emailed you work to do after you left the previous night. Oh well. Two more weeks and then time to get ready for school again. In more anime-ish news, I finished GaoGaiGar and GaoGaiGar FINAL this weekend. That more than filled my quota for awesomely epic super robot action, but then I went ahead and watched the latest episode of Gurren Lagann anyways, which was also great.

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Thursday, July 19, 2007

*blows dust off*

Wow. It's been almost a year since my last post. I've had a fairly eventful time since then, so I'll do a quick recap for those of you who don't check my other blogs. Started my junior year at MTSU, declared myself a Journalism major and am working on that. MTSU Anime Club is going well. I'm now president for the upcoming school year. I now have a staff position at MTAC as the Director of Community Outreach. Had my first girlfriend. We broke up. At least I finally got that relationship experience stuff started. Watched a hell of a lot of mecha anime. Currently working on finishing GaoGaiGar and waiting for weekly Gurren Lagann episodes. That's about it. I don't really know how much I'll post here. Kinda came back because of my new community outreach position at MTAC, so I'll be pushing that a lot, as you can tell by the link to the site being up above twice. You all should check it out. It's a kaiju theme this year. Anyway, if you have to keep up with me, check out my LiveJournal account, as I tent to post in that one the most regularly.

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