Favorite Songs 1 Friday, Feb 29 2008 

favorite songs and music and rock , , reuche 8:55 pm

While listening to some stuff before falling asleep I decided to start doing this. It’s not as though I don’t have other things to write about, but I thought this would be more fun.

So let’s start with Retsu no Matataki by JAPAHARI NET which happens to be the song used for the opening of the anime series Air Master, which is based on the manga by the same name. I don’t think that there are many people who would list this song as one of their favorites, I don’t even think there could be many people who think it’s particularly good. However if you pay attention to the song you will realize that it’s a very complete rock song and that even though nothing sounds great on its own, the instruments and vocals are in harmony. In particular the bass really sets up the guitar. In my case I’m an Air Master fan too so this song always brings up the good feelings I have about that series, making me like it more. You might say that things the song is associated with has nothing to do with the song, but human memory is entirely based on association. I might argue that good feelings are based on associated memories but that’s another story.

Consider for a moment how you’d feel about a song that was blaring as someone beat the hell out of you (or you were humiliated, anything like that). Now consider how you feel about a song that played when you met your lover or found out you’d be having a child (well maybe that’s a bad memory for you so switch it with the last one) or got engaged.

Well that aside, the harmony of the song didn’t strike me until I listened to it right after a lousy techno song that only had bass beats. Hearing this song after something like that I realized how empty that kind of music is and how, even though lower octaves are the first that people usually make out and can hear the best, they really don’t stand well on their own and serve best to set something else up. So rock music really has it right by pairing (electric) bass with (electric) guitar and drums and vocals. I would argue that including the keyboard/synthesizers in rock bands was a bad idea and nearly killed rock off but that’s another matter.

As a side note the song is about umm…. I don’t know surpassing your limits and overcoming your obstacles or something like that. Well there are a lot of songs I like so expect to see this again soon.

 

boiling meat to make a stew Friday, Feb 29 2008 

anime and cooking and for later consideration and otaku and rental magica and shakugan no shana and stew and thoughts , , , , , reuche 12:01 pm

No. Don’t just boil meat if you want stew. I suggest seasoning and searing the meat with some aromatic vegetables first and then deglaze with some wine before adding your other stuff, liquids and root vegetables, boil then cover and reduce to a simmer for an hour or three to make stew. Yeah or something like that… The thing is that no matter what liquid you boil meat in it doesn’t make that much difference to the inner flavor. In fact the longer you cook meat the less flavor it has. That’s why you cut it up into relatively thin slices and sear it to capture some spices and oil in a crust and give the meat some flavor.

So the way things are going, both Shakugan no Shana II and Rental Magica will end on high notes. If that is the case I’ll have to decide whether strong finishes make up for sloppy starts and mediocre middles. In a race finishing first is all that matters, in a game of sports scoring more points by the end of regulation time is the point. But how do you define a winner when it comes to a tv series, let alone an animated one? Is the overall impression or the final impression the most important thing? Well I’ll have an answer for you after those series end.

 

I’m gonna motherfucking kill some cunt over this one Friday, Feb 29 2008 

anime and causes and go fuck yourself and gundam and impressions and mecha and opinion and rants , , , , , reuche 9:18 am

I can not remain silent on this matter any more! I have made my view that Gundam 00 is absolutely the worst gundam series ever clear. Frankly that isn’t saying much since most are pretty mediocre, but it turns out that it’s the worst written one too. In episode 19 it’s revealed that one of the useless side characters has lost a hand as a result of an arbitrary attack by the second set of gundams which was by and far the most contrived act of the series. As the series takes place in the future and there’s all this other crazy shit out there one’s first thought is “well that’s not a big deal, they must have some way to fix or deal with that right?”. So episode 20 opens up by saying that the hand can’t be regenerated because of some special property of the gundam’s beam weapon. To add to things, this character wasn’t even hit by the weapon but crushed by rubble. I’m not an expert on whether or not energy beams leave residuals, but if they are saying that just by being in the area when these beams are fired it causes cellular damage… Then they have just totally fucked themselves. Nothing previously indicated this and there were countless opportunities to bring it up. I have little doubt that they will not create a second incident where someone loses a limb but you know that some character is going to get injured and then turn out fine even though now they’re saying gundam beams cause cellular damage by proximity. Fuck.

This is by and far the worst piece of writing I have ever encountered in my life. I have probably seen a few thousand episodes of anime, easily over 10,000 episodes of live action television, thousands of movies, thousands of books, thousands of comedy routines, untold hours of radio shows… And in all of that, Gundam 00 has the worst writing I’ve come across in my life.

So I can not remain silent about this one: make sure that no one makes any money off of this series. Do not buy any legitimate merchandise from the show, especially the models since that’s where bandai makes all their gundam money. If you like the music by the Back Horn then just buy their music and forget about the first ending single.

I think that no matter what it is, you have to stand up and say “this really sucks” and try to get people to change things. Personally I hope that there is never another gundam series again. The franchise was absolutely run into the ground with the two Seed series, but they strung its corpse up and shook it around for 00 and this is the result. I mean seriously, this is what Sunrise chose to do instead of the continuation of Code Geass? Fuck those pieces of shit. I hope they all rot in hell with Zaku FII models up their asses.