zombie nerdrage of doom

The sheer amount of unfathomable contempt I am currently feeling has driven me to dig this blog out of the grave in which it has been quietly rotting. I am feeling petty and cruel and nerdoutraged.

Over the past few months, I've become a regular follower of ANN. It's a very convenient place to get narrowly-targeted otaku news, and I'm pretty fond of the House of 1000 Manga and Answerman columns. Occasionally I read the reviews as well. I have Strong Opinions about anime, and it's interesting and at times kind of refreshing to read someone else's view that is more coherent than pseudo-readable tumblr mob babbling and gifs. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I do like consuming full sentences every now and then). Also, not going to lie, it feels nice to have my own opinions vindicated by someone who actually bothers to write their shit on the internet.

But. Today, one ANN reviewer posted their review on Hoozuki no Reitetsu Episodes 1-7 Streaming. And. Ok, you don't find the humor appealing. I can let that slide. I am personally enjoying this particular season immensely and Hoozuki is contributing greatly to that. To me, it is an unexpected delight of a show, given that I'm not usually fond of office/gag comedy, even if they are supernaturally themed. Alright, but humor is always hit and miss, and to each their own. If you didn't like the show very much, then it has nothing to do with me.

But let me quote these parts of that review, this thing that I cannot forgive:

"There are precedents for Hozuki of course. Bumbling King Enma, ruler of the afterlife, has his roots in Dragon Ball Z's version of Enma—a big bluffer seated perpetually behind his desk."

....I'm sorry? What was that???

"Hell as a harried bureaucracy drowning in paperwork was an invention of Yū Yū Hakusho. "

....are you fucking kidding me.

"There's Momotaro and his entourage, various traditional Japanese monsters and occupants of Hell, a mythical Chinese beast of some sort, and many more. None of them are amusing, except in passing (Momotaro's dog, pheasant, and monkey take to torture with disturbingly happy enthusiasm), and some are downright awful (the man-crazy, bodybuilding horse and cow women who guard Hell's gates)."

You aren't even trying, are you.

"It's possible they'd be funnier if we were more familiar with their original myths, but the treatment of mythical figures we are familiar with argues against that. Satan is a cruelly unfunny parody of the blustering American and Beelzebub is equally devoid of laughs as a parody of European aristocrats."

I don't even know what to say to this. I really don't.

Seriously, a reviewer who can't be assed to realize that King Yama and the Infernal Bureaucracy do not, in fact, originate from Dragon Ball Z and Yu Yu Hakusho shouldn't be publishing reviews on anime, especially on a series as strongly derived on Japanese culture like Hoozuki. How can you even claim to be a fan of anime if you simply watch and watch and not put forth even the slightest fucking effort into actually absorbing and digesting what you consume? I can't even call this willful ignorance anymore; you are just a stupid fucking asshole. You are literally one fucking google search away from not making a complete dumbass out of yourself. (Also since you're actually a proper staff reviewer that ANN has hired, your name is permanently attached to this dumb article for all of posterity. At least try to cover your ass a little bit when you write, why don't you?)

And I really don't even want to get into this, but the sheer amount of egocentric ethnocentrism in the comments about western Satan and Beelzebub make me really mad. If you don't give enough respect to Japanese and other East Asian cultures to acknowledge that they actually exist outside of media that you consume for you pleasure, you don't get to criticize how they choose to parody elements of western culture such that they appeal to their own tastes and sensibilities, alright?

You know what else makes me unhappy? There are 22 comments about this article while I'm writing this, only one of which pointed out the sheer factual incorrectness of attributing relatively accessible parts of Buddhist mythology to Dragon Ball Z and Yu Yu Hakusho (no, I will never get over this). This means that there are scores more of dumbasses who think the same, or aren't willing or able to make the logical conclusion that these things are recurring cultural allusions instead of a goddamn anime reference. I freely acknowledge that I am a fucking weeaboo; it is something I simply cannot deny at this point in time. But I have rarely felt so utterly contemptuous of these-things-that-are-supposedly-of-my-kind but are kind of just narrow-minded, culturally ignorant trash. Are you lacking in a brain, or could it be that your head is shoved so far up your ass that the only things that could ever possibly cross your field of vision are the things that you shit out yourself?

I'll admit that I'm just being incredibly petty and vindictive here. Ranting is what a private blog is for, after all, and just as Kathryn has her thing about anatomically incorrect skeletons, Chinese mythology is something I hold near and dear to my heart. I've been utterly charmed by the Infernal Bureaucracy ever since I got my grubby, twelve-year-old hands on an English translation of Journey to the West. This cruelty is the cruelty driven by intense nerdrage.

But, you know, actually attempting to know source material will never hurt you. You learn something and expand your worldview! And at the very least, you'll certainly get a lot more of actually watching this:

than you ever will out of watching this:

Monster: A Treatise on Screaming

After hearing such good things about it, Alice and I finally got up the courage to tackle this monster of an anime (ha...ha...ha...), which comes in at 74 episodes.  Below are our reactions and feelings toward this masterpiece.

Pokemon Origins

Last Friday I made a very poor life decision. I sat down and watched all four episodes of Pokemon Origin, and now I've sank myself back into the pit of Pokemon-obsessed nerdiness that overwhelms all reason and completely eats one's consciousness, because that is what happens with me and Pokemon. Oh, and also I just stared playing Pokemon X, so that Soul Eater summary thing is going to have to wait a bit longer >___<

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: And What a Fabulous Adventure It Is

Recently Alice convinced me to watch JoJo's Bizarre Adventure with her- and what a Bizarre Adventure it was!  I'm not sure what I was expecting, but this show certainly delivered...something!

Soul Eater reread (Ch 23-61)

Hahaha, here I was thinking I'd churn this out pretty quickly but nope, it's been a month since the last part. Oops.

Look, it's that one character... that I completely forgot about... from the part that no one remembers in the anime! Since the Asura-in-the-basement arc was the last full arc from the manga that got adapted into the anime, it was the last really coherent bit of plot that I remember. This next storyline about Arachne and so on was only partially adapted, and then everything got muddled by anime-ending and I just didn't bother trying to keep any of it in my head. But onwards to the manga chapters:

Code Geass: We Tried

So we finally got around to watching Code Geass, which has been touted as an excellent military/political drama/mindgame-type show.

So let's get a few things straight.  We liked the show, we really did.  But...probably not for the reasons we should.

Shingeki x Free....?

This blog is not dead - I promise.  We're finally done with costume-making, back from Otakon and ready to spew inanity or vitriol (though in this case, I refer to the former).

So inevitably, when two shows air together, people tend to lump them together in their brains.  This becomes particularly amusing when the shows are not even tangentially related to one another.  Shingeki no Kyojin and Free! are prime examples: Bloodthirsty titans and angst?  Meet shameless fanservice and hilarity.  This is a little collection of some of the wonderful Shingeki and Free! crossover stuff that I have stumbled across.

Or horrible, whichever

Damn it Levi now the song is stuck in my head AGAIN

ARMIN YOU ARE NOT HELPING

Credit where credit is due

These fandoms, why

bless these magical tumblr people

These aren't even Free! Shingeki crossovers anymore, I don't even care

So not sorry for any of this

I'll have an actual blog post next time, I promise.  Mostly.

~Kathryn

Soul Eater reread (Ch 0-22)

Soul Eater is finally ending! I've been waiting for it to properly end for like two years now. You see, I have problems with waiting for manga to end-- sometimes they just drag on and on and I simply don't have the patience to wait through new chapters. I mean, I understand that ending a long-running series is difficult in the best of times, but these kind of shounen battle manga can easily fall into a trap of too-many-battles-HOW-BORING. (Bleach, I am thinking of you right now) Soul Eater was definitely hitting that stage when I stopped reading. Besides, this was a monthly manga, meaning it took even longer in real time to get through the boring stuff. Hence the two year wait for it to end-- uughhh TWO YEARS!!! 

(Alright, it could have been worse. It could have been like Detective Conan. I've been waiting for Detective Conan to end for the better part of a decade and it still hasn't.)

Hence in celebration (??) I'm going to reread the whole manga from start to finish so I can figure out exactly what actually happened at the end (and also to tell Kathryn because lord knows she's never going to do it herself)

Swimming Anime - A treatise on double standards

If you pay much attention to anime blogs/tumblrs/various social media outlets, it is likely that you have come across the phrase "Swimming Anime" at some point in the last three months or so.  Here is a brief summary of the events that sparked this strange set of circumstances.

Fairy Tail: no, no, no.

Fairy Tail, the amount of really terribly unnecessary and awful fanservice in your last two chapters have filled me with a nigh undescribable level of disgust and rage. I kind of do want to continue to read you, for some increasingly mysterious reason, but it is really hard to read a manga when I am constantly facepalming at how gross it is.

Look, I don't really ask for much when it comes to mindless, generic, please-just-waste-some-of-my-time shounen. I really don't. And since I've gotten 300+ chapters without dropping Fairy Tail, it's not like there's nothing decent in there. But the last couple of arcs are getting more and more disgusting with fanservice, and if its going to continue down this path, we will rapidly reach the point where even the cutest of cartoon cats will not save this manga from my eternal contempt and loathing.

And considering my ridiculous weakness for cartoon cats, that's saying something.

Cosplay is eating my life

Alright, I haven't made a blog post in....over a month.  Part of the reason involves a cosplay that I have been trying to put together for ACen next week (while the other part involves the considerably less fun "applying to medical school" shebang).

I realize this is only tangentially related to anime, but bear with me- I will have plenty to say about this season after I'm done with the Craft Project from Hell that is Maniwa Houou's costume (and applying to medical school, of course >___>).  Priorities, man.

Looking at it more makes me want to cry

So here are some of my recent additions to Shit Cosplayers Say:

"Nooooo I need to finish this katana before I go to church!"

"So that's what happens when you superglue your fingers together..."

"I really really hate inconsistencies in the anime art...PERFECTION IS IMPOSSIBLE. There is no right answer to the arrangement of the diamonds on Maniwa Houou's head."

"Cosplay when my parents are not home involves me running around in my underwear trying everything on."

"Cleavage tutorial that increases breast size by two cups?  Hell yes."

"Oh god oh god did I really just sew through my finger, now I have to take all these stitches out!"

"Good thing she's half naked, her costume is easy."

"Okay, I looked up "doppelganger cosplay" and got a picture of two Lara Crofts making out."

"Cosplayer problems: trying to fit six people in full costume in one car."

At this point my feelings on this cosplay are kind of like this:

Let me SLEEEEEEP

And this:

Goddamnit threading needles

A real post will come....later.

~Kathryn

Manga reflects my life far too closely

The Ravages of Time (undignified fangirling time)

This is me.

Alas! I find myself in danger of disappearing off the face of this blog (not that I update much anyway). You can blame this almost entirely on the Three Kingdoms 2010 drama, which is a ridiculous 95 episodes long, each episode being twice that of your typical anime episode. Goodbye, life. 

Speaking of which, before I turned into a horrible anime/manga obsessed freak, I was a Romance of the Three Kingdoms obsessed freak first. Chinese history, awesome battles, battles of wits etc, what is there not to love? I'd like to think I'm a lot less obsessed now than I was, but every now and then (like now), I'm hit with this utter, uncontrollable fit of Three Kingdoms fanaticism that basically destroys my patience for anything else until I somehow find something more interesting to distract myself away from it. 

There are Three Kingdoms adaptations all over the place, and they vary unbelievably widely in interpretation and quality. The 2010 drama is really quite enjoyable, lengthy though it is, but by far my favorite adaption is the Hong Kong manhua Ravages of Time.

Katanagatari: A Pleasant Surprise

So it was recently recommended that I watch Katanagatari, which aired once a month starting in 2010 (and is going to be re-aired during the spring 2013 season - in only a few days, actually, yay for my timing?).  I was quite hesitant to start watching it.  Fifty-minute long episodes?  What is this, white people TV?  After much inner debate, I decided to just suck it up and watch the first episode.

A weeaboo's dilemma

tl;dr

Kekkaishi

Ghost doggies!

Ok, that's a gif from the anime, which I haven't actually watched, but it's cute and relatively representative of how much I liked this series? Really, Kekkaishi kind of blew me away in how good it was, which really shouldn't be a surprise since it's been on my to-read list for a good two or three years now as an excellent shounen manga written by a woman with good character depth and plot development etc (ie something to fill the void in my heart left by completing FMA).

It starts out episodic and really really slow, which is why it took me a while to get into it. Actually, I'm pretty sure this has been the third time I started reading Kekkaishi, but I've only finished it for the first time just now. So yes, the pacing is a bit wonky at first. But the plot builds up more and more as you go further down the story arcs, and from chapter ~150 onwards I was basically finding myself marathoning reading this manga until 2am until I was done with it.

Awesome weird monsters!

And yes, Kekkaishi is completely completed, which is probably the best thing you can say about a long-running shounen series. Unlike a lot of shounen, it doesn't drag near the end-- if anything it gets more and more interesting. It also avoids that annoying shounen pitfall where you know the story ends with the main character beating the Big Bad in some kind of epic showdown, something that even the great FMA had. So yes, I loved the ending-- it didn't all tie up in some cheap fight; it was very positive and satisfying and hopeful; there was still a twinge of sadness/melancholy to make it kind of hit home a bit harder.

Also have I mentioned how much I love reading shounen stuff written by women? It is orders of magnitude less disgusting than most of the usual stuff. There is very little fanservice, except for one part when the main character accidentally peeks on his crush when she's bathing. He then spends the entire next chapter beating himself up over it for invading her privacy-- a far cry from, say, One Piece, where purposefully peeking on women is trivialized into nothing but a joke, reinforcing the idea that that kind of behavior is acceptable and normal. Also there's this ridiculously funny boob joke in there that shows no cleavage whatsoever but had me giggling for a good two minutes. That's impressive!

Kekkaishi has an anime, but it's 50+ episodes long and only covers up to the end of the first major story arc, around chapter 120. Which is a shame, because things get so much more interesting and cool afterwards! The whole manga is 345 chapters, meaning Kathryn will never read it and she will never get to all the cool fun parts of the story. Shame, shame. My dear friend, you are missing out.

Amnesia: I kind of wish I had it after watching this

So somehow I started watching Amnesia, a currently-airing show based on an Otome dating sim.  This is completely unlike anything I would normally watch, so I'm going to blame Tumblr for throwing screenshots at me and luring me into it.  I blame the special eyes.  (MY BRAND)

International Women's Day

Happy International Women's Day! As we all know, Japan is seriously like, ridiculously sexist in many ways, and this is often reflected in the culture that it produces! Despite this, there are still a lot of really awesome women in the anime/manga industry and they make really really fantastic things.

So in the spirit of things, here's short list of cool things that you should read/watch that were created by women and with awesome female characters:

The saddest thing...

--From Cat Street, a very nice slice-of-life-y shoujo manga about people not functioning in society slowly resocializing themselves.

(I'll do a proper post later this week, I promise! :P)

Saiunkoku Monogatari

My appetite for animated Chinese-inspired period dramas has been whetted by Twelve Kingdoms. Hence I'm dragging my roommates into (re)watching Saiungoku Monogatari, which roommate C dragged me into watching back during freshman year of college. But that was years ago, so I've basically forgotten everything except:

1. Very pretty fake China!
2. The girl wants to be a government official
3. Emporer Tamaki (from Ouran)
4. Pretty boys (see above image) whose names I can't remember
5. Political intrigue (???)

It turns out that is a pretty good summation for a hefty portion of Saiunkoku, but it's still an extremely fun anime to watch. It is extremely girly shit, yes, but as with every type of genre, girly shit can be really awesome sometimes.