Twitter Tangent

[I haven't updated in a while, mostly because I've not watched much anime lately. I'll try to get some real updates in here soon. For now, enjoy this rant.]

I can’t remember when I first heard of twitter, or when I first looked at it. I’d guess a couple years ago for the former, a year or less for the latter. It wasn’t until October that I actually got involved with the site. I originally joined twitter just to see what the appeal of it was. For a while, I was left wondering. But as I started following more people, and even got a few followers, I started to get it.

At first I assumed that twitter was a passing craze(much unlike hakuna matata). It didn’t seem substantial. To follow along with a conversation on twitter, you needed to either be following the people talking, or look through their twitter pages. That seemed like such a hassle. Further, what was the point of micro-blogging when people can just do real blogs? At first glance, twitter appears to be a poorly thought out cross between blogging and communicating directly. Perhaps that was the goal(not the poorly part, obviously). However, twitter is something different.

Twitter is like natural communication. If you take away the internet, phones, books, everything but people; communication is direct comment and response. You find people of similar mindsets or likes/dislikes, and you communicate with them. The more charismatic and ambitious of us speak to large groups. But it all comes down to one person stating something and others responding.

Just like natural communication, twitter forms communities. Groups. Cliques. Unlike natural communication, the barrier between these groups/cliques/communities is so small that relevant information flows over at rapid speeds. News can reach all of twitter in an hour.

Perhaps the key difference between natural communication and twitter is twitter’s lack of geographic limitations. Now your search for kinship can include people from all across the world. Now discussions can include people with very different views on a subject, totally different native languages, and completely different cultures. Now the internet comes closer to natural communication than ever before.

Anime Movie Review: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

My reviews so far feel impersonal and a bit fractured, I’m trying to make this one a little more personal and connected.

Basics
Known as The Girl Who Leapt Through Time to English speaking audiences, Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo is a slice of life movie with dashes of adventure and science fiction. It has a PG-13 rating, which works well because it appeals to teenagers more than anyone else. It clocks in at 1 hour, 37 minutes.

The Story
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is about Makoto Konno, a girl who suddenly gains the ability to literally leap through time. As anybody would(especially a teenager), she at first uses this power for pretty much anything and everything. Realizing all the implications of the power and what she’s done, Makoto decides to use the power to undo what she’s has done while trying to learn how she gained the ability in the first place.

The idea of a story about time travel and it’s effects is about as old as modern science fiction and fantasy. You’ve probably seen most of the themes in this movie before. Even so, the story is excellent. It uses surprisingly jarring(not graphic, just jarring) scenes to change the tone from lighthearted fun to serious business. The end ties together all the lose threads in a fairly pleasant and fulfilling way.

As stated before, you’ve probably seen these themes somewhere else, but perhaps not in a combination like this. Bringing together the common time travel story and even more common teenage maturing story types, this movie delivers a movie with several lessons tied in. By learning of the ripples time travel can send through her world, Konno learns that she must take responsibility for her actions. She also learns that she should consider the thoughts and situations of other people, instead of acting solely for her own gain.

The characters are designed well enough for a movie. Makoto of course matures as the movie progresses and she learns her lessons. All the named and fleshed out characters play a proper role in the story. Not much to say about characters in a movie.

Production Value
I watched the Japanese audio, and I don’t even speak Japanese, so I don’t know how well I judge Japanese voice actors. In my opinion, the voice actors weren’t great, but they weren’t hard on the ears. The main character’s lines were delivered in a way that sounded a little forced, but not too bad. The supporting characters were of decent quality.

The art style was nothing particularly impressive, but it was just fine. There weren’t any inconsistencies in the art. It was about what you’d expect from an average budget anime.

The musical pieces used were nice and fitting to the movie. Nothing particularly stands out.

Value
Movies are generally something you can stand to watch a few times, and this is no exception. I don’t think you’ll feel bored showing it to your friends or anything. However, I wouldn’t say it’s deep enough that you’ll catch some new pieces of info the second time, unless you missed something.

You should feel happy at the end of the movie. It should also leave you with at least a bit of a sense of fulfillment. You definitely shouldn’t feel like you wasted time on this movie. All and all worth the watch.

I’d recommend The Girl Who Leapt Through Time for anyone, besides the really young. It’s one of those pieces that doesn’t just appeal to anime lovers. It’s not particularly action packed, but it does have a bit of excitement going on. If you’re a fan of energetic slice of life shows, you should enjoy this.

This movie is a good example of how something will only decent production values can still be a fantastic piece of work.

Anime (Movie) Review: 5 Centimeters per Second

I recently watched this and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. Both were fantastic, and transcend their medium.

Summary: 5 Centimeters per Second is a collection of three stories about the life of a man. The first story is from his young childhood, about the gradual separation between him and a friend. The second story is told from the viewpoint of a girl interested in him in his teenage years. The third story is about his adult life.

Length: 22 minutes per episode, 66 minutes total.

Pacing: Each story has an episodic pacing tied to the other stories. There is a time gap between episodes, but nothing related to the story happens. On a whole the pacing is fairly even. Most movies have even pacing.

Conclusion: Full circle. Ties it all down. Well done.

Characters: Movie character development usually doesn’t get as deep as TV Shows, and focuses more on developing the main character(s) as the story progress. 5 Centimeters per Second is no exception. Story is generally more important than characterization in a well done movie.

Entertainment Value: Should leave you feeling a bit fulfilled, though not necessarily happy. This is something most audiences can enjoy.

Rewatch Value: As a movie, it doesn’t take a lot of time to rewatch, and doesn’t require a lot of memory or focus. Movies therefore have a moderate to high rewatch, more based on your enjoyment of the movie than anything else.

Lessons: Movies love lessons. The show is about life, love, and growing up. You’ll find several lessons if you look for them.

Recommended For: Pretty much anyone, even people who don’t generally watch anime.

Not Recommended For: Action lovers. There is no action.

Other: Reviewing a movie is different than a TV show, so maybe I should change my format a bit for movies.

Anime Review: Seitakoi no Ichizon

Alrighty, time to review Seitakoi no Ichizon. Personally this was one of my favorite shows this year.

Summary: The show focuses on the daily meetings of the Student Council. It consists of four female members and one guy, Ken Sugisaki. Together the five get very little done and have fast-paced conversations full of references to various anime, games, and general Japanese culture.

Length: 12 TV length episodes.

Pacing: A little odd. Several episodes have little to nothing going on plot wise, while other episodes focus on a plot or backstory.

Conclusion: Nice full circle ending. I honestly didn’t expect the show to have much plot development, but it did and it was well executed.

Characters: The four main girls are based on generic character types, and they have varying degrees of depth. The main character, Ken, starts out seemingly flat but actually has a good amount of personality.

Entertainment Value: Depending on how much anime you’ve watched and how many games you’ve played, your mileage may vary. Anyone who enjoys silliness and spontaneity will find some amusement, but a large portion of the jokes are references to other works.

Rewatch Value: Moderate Rewatch Value, you’ll probably catch references you didn’t catch the first time.

Lessons: A few lessons about friendship and hard work sprinkled in, but not the main focus of the show.

Recommended For: Spontaneity Lovers, Anime Lovers, Gamers

Not Recommended For: People new to anime , people looking for something less silly

Other: I’m hoping for more of this, or something equally good from studio DEEN,

Christmas Special: Videos and Stuff

Hey guys, hope you’re enjoying your Christmas. I got a Casio 61-key keyboard, so that’s pretty sweet. Anyway, because I’m extremely bored and stuff, I figured I’d share some videos for today.

Let’s start with something sorta Christmas-esque. A wonderful arrangement combining Medicine’s Theme with Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

The rest of this is just random.

Next, Bad Apple with english lyrics. I think they put the lyrics into the video in a nice way.

Sync this song to the stage next time you’re fighting Galaxyman:

Merry Christmas Guys!

Anime Review: Nyan Koi!

Here’s my first review, I chose Nyan Koi! because I just finished it. Feel free to rip apart my writing skills, tastes, and anything else. Positive comments are also welcome, just don’t go overboard.

Summary: Nyan Koi! is a simple harem anime. It’s plot focuses on Junpei Kousaka, a boy who is allergic to cats. One day he breaks a statue of neko-jizou-sama, guardian of cats. He becomes cursed to turn into a cat(and therefore die from allergies) if he does not help 100 cats, which he can now understand. Also, it gets worse if someone else finds out.

Length: 12 episodes of standard TV length (~24 minutes).

Pacing: First few episodes introduce the girls and the situation, middle episodes elaborate on them, last few focus on plot developments and resolution. Pretty normal pacing for a harem anime.

Plot: Nothing amazing, although better than the average harem anime’s plot. You won’t be engaged and shocked, but it’s enough to keep the show entertaining.

Conclusion: The story is left fairly open. The plot that develops in the later episodes wraps up, but the main plot about the curse, as well as the harem plot, are both left open.

Characters: Almost entirely girls, of course. The characters were mold characters. Don’t expect anyone with a unique or particularly strong personality here.

Entertainment Value: Funny enough and with enough of a plot to want to watch all the way through. Probably not worth rewatching unless really bored.

Lessons: You won’t learn anything here, unless you haven’t seen any harems, in which case this is a good example.

Recommended For: Bored People, Harem Lovers, Cat Lovers.

Other: If they don’t do another season and wrap up the curse plot and the harem plot, I will think less of the show than I currently do. Optimism.

My Criteria For: Music

Well, music is in some ways more simple than webcomics or anime or books, and in some ways more complex. It tends to be a highly opinionated media. I try to listen to a little of everything, but of course everyone has their favorite music. Although, I don’t focus on genre as much as artist.

Music is hard to describe compared to anime and webcomics. Maybe music is too broad. I can say that music starts by appealing to the sense, then appeals to the mind. Anime appeals to the senses with bright colors, but it and webcomics rely mostly on capturing your mind. Music doesn’t do that, it goes straight for your ears. If they accept it, your brain pays attention to see what’s up. This is probably why most people can somewhat enjoy most music, but only love specific music.

There’s tons of reasons to like or dislike a song, so this part might be hard. I like instrumental pieces, but if there’s singing I particularly like a mix of male and female vocals. Syncopation and swing beats are pretty awesome too. My favorite instruments are the piano(generic I know), the accordion(awesome instrument with the right usage), and xylophone. I really don’t care about bpm that much, though I won’t listen to a slow song when playing an FPS or such. As far as remix and techno styles, I enjoy energetic styles.

Dislikes. I dislike A Capella, and anything with vocals that are much louder than the instruments, or anything were vocals don’t stand out enough from the instruments to understand (I’m looking at you Metal). I dislike bad songs, and I dislike songs with lyrics I think are stupid.

It just now occurred to me that I haven’t discussed anything I like in particular in these, so maybe I should start doing reviews and posts besides these soon.

My Criteria For: Webcomics

Presumably, everyone online has had at least glancing experience with webcomics. There’s a few, like Penny Arcade and XKCD, that anyone who’s been online for a while should recognize. But there’s many many others. Anyway, let’s go to the meat of this post.

The main advantage of webcomics over other medias is the ease with which you can follow the story. Even ones that update 5 times a week only take a few minutes of your day. Webcomics are to stories what twitter is to blogging. Another great advantage of webcomics is how the style allows details to be shown. Text ensures you get the main details down, while the art allows the artist to put in plenty of extra details. Done right this means both the casual reader and the observant reader find what they want.

As far as why I read webcomics, it varies, but the main reason is how little time they take to read. XKCD, a softer world, Book of Biff, and other joke-a-days are just entertaining. Story driven comedy/drama webcomics (Like Questionable Content and Megatokyo) allow you to take in developing stories in small daily bites.

As far as what I dislike, I dislike webcomics that are bad. Stupid stories are a good reason. I’m lenient on art because many artists use webcomics to improve their artwork, but art that obviously requires no work is annoying. I don’t tend to read any webcomics that are just drama drama drama, but there aren’t many of those anyway.

My Criteria For: Anime

I won’t explain anime, most likely you know what it is and all about it. If you don’t, you probably don’t care to know. I will, however, explain why I like anime.

I got into anime Freshman year in highschool. During junior high, I grew away from my friends. We had little in common and they didn’t seem to grow up(They still haven’t from what I can tell). My highschool is very small and in a mainly farmer/worker area. About halfway through freshman year I found a new group of friends. But during that first semester, I felt isolated. I had no after school activities and few people I commonly communicated with. I turned to the online world in a way I hadn’t before. I discovered anime, and consumed it insanely. Now, I’m in my Junior year. I don’t watch nearly as much as I did, but I still do watch plenty. During these three years, I think I’ve figured out what I like and dislike.

The majority of anime I watch, I watch only for entertainment. To me, anime is not a media that innovates much. I don’t usually expect a good plot, but I do expect entertainment. Anime is good at moving quickly between serious and silly. Being entirely drawn allows it to excel at visual jokes. I don’t particularly care if I learn something from an anime. As I said, I like it for entertainment.

Now for dislikes. While I don’t watch most animes for the plots, I hate when a plot isn’t wrapped up. It bothers the OCD/ADHD parts of my brain(To be fair, most things bother one of those two). I especially hate when a harem anime doesn’t wrap up. It’s just irritating. I don’t like shows with unsteady or bad pacing. It’s annoyingly common to see an anime, or almost any type of show, be completely blissful until suddenly being serious in the last three episodes.

A Blog by Me

Well, here it is, a blog done by me. I’ll focus on media, methinks. I hear them animes is popular to blog about, and I know a thing or two about ‘em. I also like music, so expect something about vibrations that are pleasant to the ears. Books too, thems good reads. Besides all that, expect some random musings about the internet and society and whatever I feel like musing about. Also expect updates to be sporadic, I don’t know how much love this place will get. If it doesn’t get enough, tell me on twitter(I’m internetlibrary thereabouts). Also, any and all suggestions and critique are welcome.