I began watching Birdy the Mighty Decode with some trepidation. Having been decidedly unimpressed with the mid-90’s edition of Birdy’s animated adventures, I came in expecting the same sub-par treatment, perhaps better presented.

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I figure it’s about time I start blogging something contemporary. Any recommendations? I tend to watch anime over my lunch break these days, so please do toss me something. I hear Xam’d is good, but it’s also licensed and that means I won’t review it until it’s on DVD. Besides that though; what are you guys into? Just keep in mind that a) I don’t like horror, and b) I don’t like shows based around cards. Thanks!

This is a bit of an ongoing debate I’m having with a buddy of mine: What exactly should you expect out of a convention? I have my own laundry list (see below), but I’d like to hear what you guys and gals think. Should a convention be efficient? Comfortable? Or just a warehouse with things to buy in it?

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One of the recent Bonus Round features at GameTrailers asks some very good questions in regards to Guitar Hero 3, such as why its songs won’t work on future instalments.

While I’ll leave the industry answers to GT’s panelists, I’d like to address something that’s been bothering me since Rock Band came out: Why the hell do I invest in these things? What incentive as a gamer do I have, if my investment is going to be outdated so quickly? With the emergence of DLC and HD installations on consoles, there’s no reason we can’t just upgrade current games of this kind, especially when they’re being released within 2-3 years of each other.
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I was asked recently about Japanese traditions, particularly the Obon (お盆) dance. While traditionally a festival to honour the deceased, particularly one’s ancestors, this celebration is not originally native to Japan.

The Obon is based on the Ullambana Sutra, one of the earliest Buddhist teachings from Southeast Asia. The Ullambana was taught to one of the Buddha’s foremost disciples, Mahamaudgalyayana — a mouthful to be sure. The Japanese call him by a much simpler name: Mokuren. Mokuren is purported to have practised a form of ritual magic which allowed him to do various things, including talk with the dead. Once, when looking into the afterlife, he saw his mother suffering in one of the various hells because she was worried about her son. Her attachment to him was prolonging her suffering, because she was unsure if she had reared him correctly. This strong clinging had amplified karma from her previous lives, and she was unable to move on.
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I lied. I had an editorial in me after all. Enjoy.

It’s not uncommon for someone to quote a piece of poetry, a television show, or a book as a source of everyday wisdom. There’s something romantic, authoritative, and cultured in doing that. It’s an accepted and natural part of our society to relate to these mediums and acknowledge how they affect our lives. But what about anime?

Anime lives in a strange realm for Western audiences. On the one hand the medium is just that: a medium. It delivers to all ages, all tastes, and all interest groups. Yes there are styles within anime, and there are mainstream characteristics to Japanese-produced animation, but to say it’s “all the same” is a highly fallacious statement. The problem comes in with the other hand: Cartoon stigma. The West has viewed cartoons as childish and a form of cheap escapism since their inceptions. While there are cartoons which have attempted to break into the adult scene, they’re few and far between when compared with the humongous wealth of animated stories available for children. As a result, anime is often perceived the same way.
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A picture of my mental state might well look like this: Imagine a man who has just been employed, and yet can’t seem to come down off a wall built from his personal troubles to actually attend to his job. That probably describes me.

It’s not that I won’t go to work on Tuesday; I will. I’ll be my bright, cheery work self. But until then, part of my brain is dealing with the notion that getting out of bed in the morning will be a chore. That worries me immensely.

I’ve been away from blogging for months now, partially due to a heaping truck of projects that pulled up my house and let dump, but also due to the fact I haven’t really kept up with any anime. Not even Macross Frontier! What the hell, right? It’s a great series; I just can’t really drag up the want to watch it right now though.

I think a big problem in me is that I don’t know what I’m doing right now. I’ve been fighting with a few good friends, learning new and horrible things about my temper, and job-hunting. Well, one of out of three has been properly addressed, and I’m working on the other two. Blogging? Blogging will return. But not now; not in the near future. Sorry folks; I’d love to toss all my editorial thoughts onto the internet every week, but it just aint happening right now.

Wish me luck~

This is more or less a post apologising for real life. Feel free to skip it if this sort of thing makes you rip small animals in half.

*coughs*

Some of you know I’ve recently graduated from college — yesterday actually, with a BAA in Illustration. That is, my ceremony was yesterday. I’ve been taking time off and recouping with little bits of my life. Not an easy process, as you may imagine, but a good choice nonetheless. I now need to start looking for work — there are bills to be paid and wages to make. As a result, I’ve had to limit how much time I spend writing, and that’s a shame because I love writing so.

The problem is, I’m not yet a skilled enough writer that I feel I can make money from it. I’m a much better artist now, and I hope that’ll carry me for a few years to come. Heck, maybe I can even do that career thing… Yeah!

What does this mean for TNK? Not much. Less updates, obviously, but I’ve been told time and again to go at my own pace. The problem is that I don’t think I’ll ever be a “series blogger”, because I don’t really like what that demands from me. Perhaps in that I’m a disappointment to some people, but I don’t hold myself responsible to them.

I’ll probably end up posting a fair bit about Macross Frontier when it’s finished its run. I love the series; I really do. But unlike when Lucky Star came out, the “magic” of blogging has run a bit thin on me. I’d prefer to recap and talk in-depth about something, rather than topically gouging through it. What you may hear from me while it’s being fanlated is Rookies, one of my favourite contemporary manga titles. I’ve been up for countless hours reading it. ^^;

I like to think of myself as a liberated gamer. Liberated in the sense that the whole of my participation in the so-called “console war” is limited to disparaging remarks towards the people who are wholly entrenched in that sordid affair.

I grew up in the midst of what can be referred to with hyperbole as the “World War II” of consoles — the SNES and Genesis era. Information was bought on paper, the internet was being developed in secret basements by secret people, and the war was conducted in neighbourhoods everywhere merely because it was something to do. You see, children have this necessity to latch onto make-believe, and joyfully so. Without make-believe I feel my childhood would have been a dull, colourless place, devoid of imagination.

Yet at a certain age we have to realise that our make-believe isn’t part of our real life, but peripheral to it. Now that we’re onto — what, World War V? VI? I’m not sure anymore — my generation should have grown up some years prior. My generation is anyone around 25, who was born in the early section of the 1980’s. My generation may have played the NES and Master System, but the real heyday began with the SNES and Genesis. The generation right after me (anyone born in the mid-to-late 80’s) picked up said systems near the end of their lives, but still participated in the war. They were just late recruits.
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A few days ago I had the rather onerous conversation that I’ve been fearing for some years now: What exactly is shoujo versus shounen? What defines them, and who is “allowed” to read them?

Had this been asked of me a few years ago, I might have argued that the Japanese system pinpoints target audiences a fair bit better than the North American, but now I’m pretty convinced they’re both screwed because of how interrelated most media tends to be. For instance, is Claymore shounen? Most people would seem to think so, yet at the same time the entire series is about strong female archetypes, which would make its audience (at least over here) more pointed at women. Conversely, Cutey Honey is a rather erotic series about a busty superheroine who gets naked between costume changes, yet a sizeable chunk of her fanbase back in Japan is made up of young girls idolising her.
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