The so called "classics'...

Is it just me or is there some sorta generation gap between us older fans from the 80-90s and all these new age ones that joined in recent popularity after 2000?

I mean all of a sudden I find many of my favorite series as being reffered to as "old school" or "classic". While I might understand that with my favorite manga "Nausicaa of the valley of the Wind" since it is from the 80s but my second favorite series "Ranma 1/2" as well?!

Beyond simply being refered to as old I have heard some unkind things of manga which were revolutionary for their time and what I myself still regard as high quality to this day. I mean Miyazaki hand inked much of Nausicaa and I see people regarding it as "bad"?! I mean tis a far cry from the clean and smooth lines of today but they are clearly artistic differences not quality ones. I mean rarely do you come across such detailed backgrounds even with manga series like Negima CGing much of the environments as well as battle effects. Normally I might shrug this off as a fool commenting but when I see more than half a thread of people making the same comments of "bad art" and "slow story" on what I viewed as an epic title I can't help but wonder if there is a generational gap between us raised on Mobile Suit Gundam & Gundam Wing or Dragonball & Dragonball Z v.s. those who join in during Gundam SEED & Gundam SEED Destiny or Naruto & Death Note.

Well it is something to contemplate... I am still unconvinced that maybe I am reading in to deeply and this is just the result of every kid these days having ADD.

OtoBoku: Harem^10 - Harem + A Trap = ???

Harem to the 10th Power. Thats right dunno what number you end up with but thats one hell of a harem. I think I might have found a record for most girls strung along at once. I mean excluding the super ecchi Girls Bravo that is. Girls Bravo doesn't count 'cause the dude was the only dude on the whole freaking planet and it was more lust than love I mean not seeing a guy in so long 20 years of hormones tends to catch up on you. Now take that lust and multiply that the population of a planet. I mean if those girls got a hold of him they would have taken turns raping him till there was nothing left... that is if his alergic reaction to women didn't kill him first. But this blog isn't about Girls Bravo no matter how funny (read: ridiculous) a subject it is.

Mizuho (picture right) here achived quite the feat. Using his dead grandfather as an excuse and his mother's old connections he got himself accepted to an all girls school. In the course of the term he managed to get himself "onesama" of the whole freaking student body and an idol to all. Sorta like Princess Princess except Yuri instead of Yaoi and a trap instead of a real chick. I guess the saying is true "the bigger the lie the more people will believe it" and boy did they eat this one up. Not just the characters in the anime but the Japanese press and just about everyone ever smitten by Bridget ever.

Mizuho holds the title of being the first male to be featured prominently by Megami Magazine AND have a full length poster as well. Quite the feat if I do say so myself. Actually it is quite the centerfold 0.o;; Actually with pics like that and this one that leave little to the imagination hard to imagine that it is really a dude. Actually this has lead to quite the debate I mean is he trap, a double trap, and is this yuri?. I think I have fallen gay for him but alas it seems his interest is only in women I mean he not only has the whole all female high school student idolizing him but the whole sister middle school as well. Hell he was even able to make ghosts of dead chicks who died in his room fall for him.

Well anyways beyond the oddity of the main character Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru is quite a solid series beyond its gender-bending oddities which is a lot more than can be said about some series. Unlike the aforementioned example it really doesn't beat you over the head with the crossdressing theme and instead tells quite the story as Mizuho follows in his mother's footsteps as one of the legendary "onesama"s of the school. It has the formula for a harem or an ecchi series but instead it grows into quite the romantic drama as characters learn more about themselves and their own feeling and motivations. The series isn't just about Mizuho but also all the characters around him and them exploring their relationship with the astranged boy some knowing his secret and some not. Mizuho learns more about his deceased mother and why his grandfather wanted him to come to this all girl's school.

Story wise it isn't that bad. Music is strong and though I am unframiliar with the studio studio Starchild did an excelent job. Certainly a far cry from Psychic Academy Aura Banshou and on superior to even Jinki Extend a series that I have seen before and thought was pretty good but did not know was by Starchild till I looked them up. Best of all it suffers none of the pacing problems of yuri series like Kashimashi ~ Girl Meets Girl ~ and progresses rather well but at a mere 12 episodes it left me crying for more.

So at 12 episodes here ends a series that I was quite satasfied with and what is quite possibly the legend of the greatest trap (or hoax) ever.

~ ArioNeko

Rock the Vote! American Anime Awards!

Rock the Vote! American Anime Awards Voting Begins!



Vote Now! @ AmericanAnimeAwards.com

All of your favorite VAs are there like everyones fav Crispy Semen, as well as your faovrite shows, like Naruto. even oldies like NGE got itself nominated ons everal categories.

Be sure to rock the vote in the American Anime Awards. If you don't you only have yourselves to blame if Maile Flannigan gets voted in to she-dog as Best Female Voice actor by Dub-tards and Naruto or FMA get best anime just 'cause the idiot masses like em.

Over 500 articles on a single Japanese cartoon series...

Wikipedia: Over 500 articles on a single Japanese cartoon series.

We win again! Mwhahaha. I just laughed that once again the people @ The Pokémon Collaborative Project have done it again. With Bulbasaur as Wikipedia's featured article they go for two as they got Torchic as today's featured article. Serious props to the guys @ Wikipedia and the Pokémon Collaborative Project.

Beyond that the scheduled Motto of the Day for December 26, 2006 is "
Wikipedia: Over 500 articles on a single Japanese cartoon series."

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Ethnocentrism & Xenophobia: Anime & Manga in America

Ethnocentrism & Xenophobia: Anime & Manga in America

One of the things that continually bugs me is the skewed way in which many people approach Japanese animation & manga. I mean how many times after naming anime & manga as interests have you received responses of along the lines of "tentacle porn? or "it’s that 'hen-thai' stuff right?". These kind of responses simply make me cringe and at times almost fear to mention my love for anime and manga to others.

The American media does nothing to remedy this with its ethnocentric view of anything foreign fanning every American parent’s xenophobia and fear of the unknown. How is the media ethnocentric? The mainstream media has the tendency to look at the world from the perspective of American culture and failing to account for cultural relativity.

It is natural to compare something new to something that is familiar to us I understand but after they put their ‘spin’ on things you often end up with distorted headlines such as “Anime that's not child's play” as was on one local paper. What was originally an article discussing Ukiyo-e, a genre of Japanese woodblock prints, and Shunga, erotic artwork, from the Edo period is twisted into the subtitle “Pokemon, Hello Kitty, tentacle porn? We out why sexually explicit cartoons are so popular in Japan”. Such is the nature of many American reporters that after reporting that manga is a growing market, one worth over $180 million, and a passing comment about there being many genres they jump right into “hentai” & “lolicon” not even giving notice to the Shonen & Shujo genres that make up Viz’s monthly manga-zines.

People naturally compare something new to them to something familiar. When comparing cultures that is called Ethnocentrism. People naturally fear the unknown and when that concerns strangers and something foreign that is called Xenophobia. Both of these are very prevalent in America. Anime and manga are being imported from a foreign country and culture so it is natural one must approach it with an open mind to accept or understand it. That is not something the American media has been famous for over the years so I guess their reactions are to be expected. As anime/manga continues to grow here in American I hope we can one day we can move past these the images of “hentai”, “tenticle porn”, and “lolicon” and approach this import from the land of the rising sun with an open mind and eventual acceptance.

Demashitaa! PowerPuff Girls Z! (Pedo-licious! )

Yea I just finished watching Utawarerumono Ep 16 and decided "what the hell why not?" and went ahead and DLed the first two eps Demashitaa! PowerPuff Girls Z. The anime-tized PowerPuff girls series straight from Japan and Miho Shimogasa of Sailor Moon. Bah I never liked Craig McCracken's new stuff (Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends) anyways.

Fuck Chemical X we got gems and magical girl transformation sequences! I would compare it to the loli-tastic Lyrical Girl Nanoha, a magical girl series that is below the age of consent (14 in Japan), which I truly believe they made just for the sake of making something loli, except the skirts in Lirical Girl Nanoha always managed to stay below the knee and which overall the loli levels pretty stable. However PPG Z man... Holy crap they got anti-gravity pleated miniskirts which seem to almost hover in the air.

 Magical girl transformation sequences, loli, & miniskirts nope it doesn't stop there. Screw that flairing bulb cut that Buttercup has. Too plain. Cue trademark spikey hair. Like any girl we gotta accessorize and whats better than an oversized mallet? Yup they got weapons now too and ripped straight out of Akane's (Ranma 1/2) mallet space we got huge arse oversized version of Skuld's (Ah! My Goddess) debugging hammer.

Sugar, Spice & everything nice? Who needs it? This is Japan and its all in the Daifuku (a rice cake with red bean paste inside) baby! What do you get when you add Daifuku to Chemical X? Why Chemical Z of course. Chemical Z plus giant chemical powered laser cannon blowing something up? Falling debris that glow crashing into schoolchildren and poof a "transforming heroine"!

So yea... and apparently these characters are powered by sugar so rather than stealing money or anything like that, the villains collect candy from little kids 0.o;;

One last thing. Fuck Townsville to this takes baby takes place is Tokyo! Land of the rising sun bitches!

Whatever. Lets post some screenshots & my own nifty captions eh?

OP Big Series Title Thingy. There you got it "And They're Off! Powerpuff Girls Z" is born.

Fuckin Hammertime Anime Style! Note the spikey hair and the Akane/Skuld-esq hammer that she pulled out of what I assume to be a subspace pocket a la anime physics

Uber Kawaii Big Teary Eyed Technique! My god... Oh god help us all...

This Ain't Your Little Sister's Townsville! Tokyo bitches! This series takes place in the land of the rising sun.

You know its a transformation sequence when they got crazy poses/camera angles glowing clothing

Holy crap. You know when they are almost done they shout their name. Well they do it an heavily accented English and I swear to God is sounds like she is shouting "Loli-ing Bubbles!"

Crap! Yup glowing skirt. As always it comes last in the sequence and with a wave of an arm the glowing anti-gravity pleated mini-skirt appears!

Of course everyone knows key to any magical girl transformation sequence is the Dramatic Pose®! Please note hand and arm placements.

A Challenger Approaches! *cue music* Its Mojo and he is stealing candy from schoolchildren!

As you may already know all magical girls fight in the name of love. Again please note careful hand and arm placement essential to the Dramatic Pose®!

WTF! The professor had a son?! *shrugs* news me me...

Apparently the PowerpuffGirls & their enemies are powered by sweets. And yea the battle was ridiculous. >_<;;

Wha Mojo is loosing the battle? Summon the mech! Time for super-sized action!

Needless to say Mojo lost and now cue Team Rocket-esq exit as his mech explodes...

Its march of the fuckin penguins. What the Japanese have with penguins I will never understand. Dun even ask how this came about.

Well I am out... I surely had enough... Check it our torrents on AnimeSuki here