Songs without Words

Very Good

1. Hourou Musuko (9/10): endearing characters, exquisite art style, difficult subject matter.

2. Puella Magi Madoka Magica (8.5/10): few shows make me as excited to pore through reams of online speculation as this one.  A very intense up-ending of the Magical Girl genre.  Psychedelic abstract art abounds.

3. Yumekui Merry (7/10): shares a lot in common with Madoka – the whole alternate-world entering to fight certain enemies or whatnot.  But it has its charms, great characters, and gorgeous animation quality.  The quirky orchestral score is fascinating enough to merit watching this show, alone.

Average

4. Dragon Crisis! (5/10): it has potential, but so far just seems like the average girl-with-magical-powers-arrives-on-boy’s-lap story, and Yumekui Merry does this trope better.

5. Gosick (5/10): great set-up and characters, gorgeous settings and costumes.  But for a mystery show, the mysteries are rather .. boring and straightforward.

6. Kore wa Zombie desu ka (5/10): pretty ordinary undead protagonist show.  Harem members are amusing to watch, but not expecting much out of this one.

Not Good

7. Infinite Stratos (4/10): as derivative and generic as it can get.  Just watch for pretty graphics and a great excuse to have the entire class be made up of girls ..

8. Freezing (3/10): fanservice ..

9. Rio – Rainbow Gate (2/10): what is this even supposed to be?

Not yet watched enough to rate: Level E, Beezlebub, Onii-chan no koto, Wolverine, Kimi ni Todoke 2, Mitsudomoe 2, Starry Sky

Hmmm … perhaps only Megatokyo/Kanon fans would get that title, haha ..

Anyway, while studying for finals (which turned out well, it seems!!), I sketched a happy girl. At a friend’s suggestion, I’ve colored her now. Regarding the coloring scheme, I knew that the skirt had to be burgundy because I saw a woman wearing a solid burgundy skirt in the snowy winter and it was stunning in its simplicity and elegance. She was probably the only person wearing a skirt, period.

The character’s hair is black, but I tend to avoid coloring anything solid black, so I did a red-wine interpretation of black. That left the argyle sweater in the middle, and I think one of the merriest colors to go with burgundy is green. Lots of green! I’ve recently started to like green, despite an earlier aversion to it. In fact, I may buy a green dress shirt if I see it in a store (they’re rare!). Almost all my shirts are blue (and my bro’s are mostly pink … he has curious fashion tastes … kind of preppy?) or white, plus one black one.

Coloring-wise, I tried to learn a new technique I had seen, which is essentially to make some transitions between light and dark shades gradients while others are sharp distinctions.  This differentiates color transitions based on folds and cast shadows (sharp) and transitions that are on gentle slopes.  I artificially created the gradients using smudging.  Additionally, this is my first time doing shading on patterned surfaces – it’s pretty annoying to come up with dark/light shading pairs for each color and then applying them, but I like the way that it looks.  I may try being more efficient next time by using other tools.

My main regret is that I made the line-art thick, appropriate for the cel-shading I originally set out to do. I switched to this style when I started using those colors – certain colors want to be cel-shaded, and certain colors are just too exquisite to be used that way.

I am also a purveyor of lazy-ass backgrounds. Sorry … one of these days I’ll do a real background.

Click here for bigger version (you can’t see much detail at this size ..)

All comments/crits welcome.

Anime is known for repetitive soundtracks consisting of throw-away tunes and rip-offs of classical and impressionist works. However, despite that, animation, with its exact timing, allows for some of the most exquisite coordination of music with the images.

The day before yesterday, I was watching Kimikiss Episode 10 in the student center with the sound off (I was scarfing down a sub before the ASA general body meeting). When I came to the ending sequence of just a few shots, I knew that even though I could not hear the music, the timing was planned perfectly.

This morning, I went back to rewatch the sequence several times with sound to savor an incredibly memorable moment. Granted, this is the director who made Honey and Clover, which surpassed the boundaries of girls’ shoujo and guys’ “slice-of-life” (think Minami-ke or Azumanga Daioh) to win quiet acclaim and a place in the top ranks of persisting anime. Nevertheless, the source material of Kimikiss was some average romance sim game, so I had my doubts and reservations.

The anime has nothing of the artifice and shameless girl-fondling associated with dating sims. The biggest emotional drama comes when the heroine, Mao, has to choose between two guys who could not contrast more – a jazz saxophonist and her childhood buddy, with whom she played video games and such. At this particularly poignant moment (every episode ending is poignant, but this one especially so), Mao is taking care of her childhood friend, Kouichi, who has become sick because he had been out in the rain the previous day. But he was out in the rain because he ran into her boyfriend, Kai, at the bookstore and wanted to recommend that Kai take her out to cheer her up. Of course, as any drama would have it, Mao was depressed in the first place because she realized that Kouichi really cared about her and picked up on her subtle needs. That means that, coming full circle, Kouichi’s illness right after a wonderful date with Kai only serves to increase the emotional tension.

That exhaustive explanation in hand, the scene is thus: Mao is sitting beside an ill Kouichi, tending to his fever. The music playing has shifted from centered jazz chords to a modal-sounding shift between F and e chords on the piano, with light glock tinkles on the E’s. At the moment she leans in, the music halts mid-phrase and all that is left is an unresolved E twinkle and the resonance of a pedal-held piano note. In silence, she kisses his forehead and backs off; he awakens and looks at her.

The ending theme of this show has a few defining features, none of which are particularly groundbreaking, but they are still notable.  First, there are two tonal centers: D major and E major; the A and bridge sections are in D, and the refrain is in E.  Second, the refrain’s second phrase pushes two notes up an octave, resulting in “E D# E (up a major seventh) D# C# F#.”  This displacement is really stark because of the human voice in that range.  The lyrics of the second refrain phrase are: “It seemed like it would break / And it was so precious I couldn’t touch it / I won’t ever forget / The wish I made upon that star.”

The phrase “I won’t ever forget” is a single word in Japanese: wasurenai (yo).  The “wasure” part is “forget,” and the “nai” negates it.  It is thus appropriate that the “nai” is the one that ends up on that high D#.

The opening of a song with its last refrain line is not uncommon; in anime opening themes, one frequently does so during some opening image before the title appears.  For ending themes, the dangling refrain is performed with altered accompaniment before the ending sequence begins.  However, the brilliance of this director is the timing of the dangling phrase, which I think has only been matched by Futakoi Alternative, with “Bokura ga Jikan,” with its guitar phrase introduction.  The singer enters on a profile shot of Mao’s eyes shaking, holding back tears, staring into the distance, contrasted with Kouichi’s sullen, expressionless face, just staring at her.

When the instrumental bridge takes over, the scene moves back a few feet, as if Mao had been singing those words and now in the distance you cannot hear them any more.   When the strings hit their high D# in turn, the scene switches to a shot of a starry sky (again drawing from the song).

Finally, when the song abruptly modulates to D major to begin its A section, the credits begin on a the opposite color from blue, bright orange.  E (bright) to D (less bright) is a grounding effect, and the polar shift of blue (sky) to orange (Earth) mirrors that.

I did not talk in length about every element of the music, but if you want to understand deeper what I mean, just watch this 1-minute segment at the end of the episode and I think you’ll get it without any explanation.

I am a composer who is always thinking about images as I write, so I guess this kind of thing means a lot to me.

The creator of FMA has a new series, Jyushin Enbu: Hero Tales (http://www.jyushin.jp/top.html).  It looks like bye-bye to Europe for the time being, but some rather recognizably similar character designs dot the landscape.  A couple +1’s for the gals who prefer “gar” characters over bishounen =P.

Tonight, I inexplicably began watching the Japanese live-action adapation of Hanazakari no Kimitachi e. A few years ago, I came across this manga, not altogether that remarkable because of its similarities to other gender-bending series coming out at roughly the same time (there are plenty — Power!! (aka Girl Got Game), W Juliet, etc.) Nevertheless, Hana Kimi is unique in the spunk that it brings to the table, both through the characters and through the atmosphere it creates. While there are the inevitable crutches when the series employs the requisite awkward moments, a lot of the humor actually has very little to do with the heroine’s gender, and a lot more to do with the strange and bizarre cast that really lights up the scene in an amusing but wholly engrossing escapist take on high school life. There is a distinct lack, in particular, of any classwork or indeed professors of any sort – it’s just competitions, parties, and sports – and it’s better off for it.

Ashiya Mizuki, the main character, is a rather complex person. In some ways, her native “form” seems to be rather cutesy and feminine. However, she isn’t the type that ever needs to be protected or pampered, or even who might need to have a close confidante. Whereas other series might try to portray the “strong heroine,” especially of the cross-dressing variety, as either someone who is distinctly testosterone-driven or as someone who needs constant attention in spite of herself, Hana Kimi avoids this by having Ashiya’s strength transcend gender boundaries. She has courage and devotion, but it is not “manly” courage and devotion – it is just a strength that arises out of her, and a strength that would probably propel her to act, whether or not she was a girl.

Izumi Sano, the hard-to-catch guy with the trademark angsty past, can really be annoying and harsh (apparently the way shoujo manga-readers seem to like their bishounen). But to his credit, Ashiya really can be a pain at times. Despite his rather antisocial attitude towards his post-accident life, he’s still an easy one with whom to relate. He represents that little piece of all of us that we dropped somewhere along the way, finding some half-hearted justification for why we could no longer invest in it, or why it was no longer worth it. A childhood dream, maybe, or a talent or hobby; parents talked us out of it, or money convinced us not to pursue it, or it turned out to be too hard or too much work. We choose to give up things, and sometimes, like Izumi, we don’t want to own up to what we’ve done. Some factor or other is what made us stop, not ourselves. Izumi’s eventual feelings for Ashiya represent the resurrection of abandoned dreams in our hearts, and that may be what makes him more sympathetic than he otherwise would be.

For a shoujo manga that shamelessly exploits its pretty boys for plenty of girl-oriented fanservice, it is surprisingly balanced in its presentation, and I feel that Ashiya is just as attractive and sympathetic as the other members of the cast, in perhaps a similar fashion to Ouran High School Host Club.

To wind down after a long day at lab, I hopped onto crunchyroll (which is honestly one of my favorite websites right now =P) and clicked on a random video on a whim.  I think there was a screenshot of a cute girl or something (predictable?  Ahahha).  The show turned out to be the live-action adaptation of Tantei Gakuen (Detective Academy) Q, and while the opening clip seemed a bit too scary for this hour of night, I found out from the comments that there was an anime adaptation of the same name.  I searched in WK but it turned out, after more searching, that it is listed only under its English name.  Based on the images from ANN, it seemed to be somewhat of a kids’ show, but the “Detective” part had me intrigued.  While it’s certainly not a perfect show (the dialogue isn’t always smooth), it’s pretty entertaining and the cases thus far have been quite enticing and complex already.  While I love Ghost Hunt, I prefer more logical detective stories (vs. supernatural) because I get to think along with the characters (btw, they’re mostly guys).

Sigh, I’ve tried writing mysteries before, but it’s really really hard.  You have to be able to think like a criminal before you can think like a detective =).

So yeah, one of the more overlooked animes of this season, judging by blog posts and buzz, is the anime adaptation of Les Miserables, which is, from what I read online, a mixture of the original book and the musical. I had avoided this title mainly because I was afraid they’d “dumb it down” – the character designs just looked too clean and cheerful.

However, after watching episode 1, I’ve concluded that while some of the details have been obscured by omission (eg, Fantine says that “her husband died,” and it is left to the viewer to catch that maybe she’s telling a white lie re: her relationship to Cosette’s father), it’s definitely not afraid to tread into dismal territory (true to its name ..).

I also thought they’d only be adapting Cosette’s portion of the story, but they seem to be going through it all, with the characters growing up so that they’re teenagers by ep. 26. I’ll probably watch this one slowly, but I think it’s going to turn out beautifully. I’m glad I gave it a try ..

Maybe the morning shower is what causes morning blogging … .  Anyway, I wanted to highly recommend an old anime/manga called “Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou” (YKK for short).  It’s a post-cataclysmic story set in a semi-submerged Japan, but rather than creating a world that is dark, gritty, and anarchic (God, I almost just wrote ‘apoptotic’ …), it conceives of collapsing humanity as one looking back on itself with optimistic nostalgia.  Like an elderly person accepting his/her inevitable death, humanity and its creations (robots, vehicles, etc.) try to savor the beautiful elements of Nature and a nice cup of coffee in their last breath, fading slowly from existence.

Nothing really happens in this story … at all … it’s one of those art pieces that you just have to see for yourself to understand.  The mystery of what happened is never quite revealed, though the lack of outward battle scars seems to indicate to me that it is more of an environmental disaster than world war.

I think that my writing to reading ratio is rather high because it takes only a little bit of reading to send my desire to write clear through the roof.  Reading a few fanfics my girlfriend recommended to me has inspired me a great deal (heehee, I love dating a fellow nerd ;) ).  Incidentally, I have also been inspired by the sheer coolness and manliness of Gurren Lagann, the new Gainax anime that I was hesitant to watch.  It is the polar opposite of Lucky Star, with a focus on action, machines, drills, power, and most importantly, the importance of will and guts.  I highly recommend it – it’s no Evangelion, but it’s better, in my opinion, than This Ugly and Beautiful World and perhaps on par with Furikuri (any Gainax fans out there?).  I think girls would enjoy it, too … the girls I know, anyway.  Just have to look past Yoko’s bursting chest … to see Kamina’s rather nice, muscular topless body ;).

Anyway, I’ve begun writing a story, but I should probably check out of my now-clean room first before they start hounding me down for that key.

The new story will probably not achieve any new ground in terms of deep emotions and lengthy prose.  Almost every line starts with an indent, and I doubt that will be changing.  This is a sequel to the old story “Triumvirate” that I wrote, featuring the same main characters after they return to Catleya.  Patrick and Sonya are the royal children (the country is always unnamed, but it’s taken to be Justinland).  Their mother is Queen Jessica, who is stern and distant (but used to be very spunky and rebellious before she became a widow).  Beya (Belladonna, beautiful woman) is an “alien,” but human, formerly a priestess on the secluded, devout planet of Xishebelle (beautiful flower).  During the golden age, humans settled many planets – that was circa 8000 years ago, and the downfall of humans led to loss of communication with the outer colonies, one of which became subjugated to a fanatical religion – that being Beya’s homeland.  After the defeat of the three false gods, the various convents and monasteries were disbanded and Beya decided to emigrate to Catleya with Patrick, with whom she had fallen in love.

This story picks up right after Beya completes her xenosanitization procedure, which is the modern way of clearing a person of alien pathogens, nucleic-acid based or otherwise.