Saturday, February 28, 2004

Boring day, again.
I woke up at half past noon today. Enough said about the first half of that Saturday.

It's weird, though. I did nothing but sleep for three days, and I got to bed at midnight (that's usual, especially on school nights), so I wonder why I slept in so late.

I've been reading MegaTokyo comics all day. Boy, it's a good series. In a sense, it makes me think of an authentic, made in Japan manga. The artist doesn't try to overuse Japanese techniques of art, it's not a thin, crappy plot.. But the main thing is that Fred Gallagher doesn't really try to make it like a real manga for popularity's sake. He just does what he does, and it feels like something straight out of Japan.

But Largo sucks. His 1337 could easily be |) 3 f 3473|).

MegaTokyo was recently put in graphic novel form by Dark Horse Comics, which takes this "American Manga" dynamic one step further.

And so comes the main topic of this MyOtaku post: Americans using anime and manga styles.

Personally, I've never been a big fan of US cartoons that are in "anime" style. They tend to over-use freakout expressions, emphasize poor framerates, and just portray a poor stereotype of anime to the masses.

IGPX was an exception to what I am saying, however. This miniseries looked and felt just like a true anime- Not a Pokemon or Digimon-like anime, mind you, but something more in the Witch Hunter Robin and Rurouni Kenshin calibur. The authenticity in the animation techniques were as they are done in Japan, and it wasn't cheery/happy/bouncy like so many of its predecessors.

Teen Titans is another good example of these cartoons. I must say that I'm not pleased with how they overuse freakout expressions- Even in the middle of a pivotal battle they're still doing the comic-relief expressions, and that bothers me. But you have to applaud the effort that was put into it, though. They got Puffy Amiyumi to actually record two versions of the theme song, and I noticed that the Teen Titans soundtrack is set up a lot like Japanese anime OSTs. There are character image songs, one for each of the protagonists, some for villains, and a few recurring battle tracks, plus two versions of the actual theme song. You have to applaud that.

On the other end of the spectrum are shows like Totally Spies- It examplifies the stereotype of anime that most non-otaku think of the genre-- Crappy framerate, kid-oriented, light-hearted cartoons. "All anime is just childish cartoons."

It may not be so long until anime is fully recognized for its true qualities by the masses, however. If the Evangelion movie is pulled off well, that may spark the masses' interest in anime. Good anime, too. Let's just hope that WETA doesn't differenciate their Americanized Evangelion too far from Sadamoto's Eva.

Yes, and I'm being forced to play Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles by my brother again, so I have to cut this short. Later, people.
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