Gen X Otaku 1971: the OG blog

Sailor Moon DVD / Blu-Ray Combo Pack Season 1, Parts 1 & 2

I bought these two sets on a whim at my local Best Buy outlet, even though I’ve actually seen all of Part 1 already on Neon Alley for free. The reason being that I am actually giving these sets to my young cousin for Christmas as part
of her Christmas present. These are the original shows with a brand new dub that is truer to the Japanese script. I want her to be able to enjoy what other young girls have enjoyed a generation ago, too.
 
As for myself, although I’m giving them away, I wanted to check out Part 2 for myself. And I find I’m surprised how much more I’m enjoying Part 2 than I did Part 1. Now that the main characters are introduced and established, I get to
enjoy the introductions of Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Venus, the latter of whom I eagerly anticipated because of her being voiced by veteran FUNimation alumna Cherami Leigh. The stories on a whole in Part 2 are far more emotionally intense and impactful. 
I found myself tearing up more than once during the episodes contained on Discs 1 & 2 of Part 2. I just started Disc 3 and the story continues to take a decidedly darker tone than anything found in Part 1. I’m really enjoying the ride, despite not being
in the target demographic for this show.
 
I strongly recommend these DVD/Blu-Ray combo packs from VIZ Media, and I look forward to the release of the dub of Sailor Moon Crystal. Though once I finish Part 2 of Season 1, my ride with the Sailor Scouts will probably come to an end. 
I’m doubtful I’ll explore the other iterations of Sailor Moon, I just wanted to get my feet wet with the re-dub of the original show. I do note that the opening and closing songs are in Japanese rather than the English cover version(s) I’ve heard elsewhere,
which is fine. I just wish the English cover opening was still available so my cousin could learn it more easily and sing along. The Japanese is probably a little over her head at her current age.
 

Coppelion Dub on Neon Alley

Coppelion (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I recently finished the Dub of the 13-episode sci-fi anime series Coppelion, set in a near future Tokyo that has been decimated by a nuclear catastrophe.  The ostensible heroes of the series are 3 genetically engineered female clones who have been genetically engineered to resist radiation and other environmental pollution and contamination.  It sounds promising, potentially, as a series, but the show is so badly written that it leaves one nearly exasperated thinking about the plot holes and obviously improbable situations with respect to logistics, how science works, etc.  I can suspend disbelief but Coppelion also gives us screwy character motivations that don't make sense, melodrama stretched to absurdity, and extremely preachy tirades to stand in for more substantive dialogue.  It makes my brain hurt to listen to.  The animation style is very unconventional and the girls themselves are drained of color, as if to emphasize their "doll-like" nature, which does make thematic sense.  The title of the anime is borrowed from a French opera about a Pygmalion-like artist who created a life-like doll.  The anime features a lot of earth tones and is dull and white, with only sparing use of color.  The girls spend much of their time apparently rescuing reluctant, delusional middle aged Libertarians who seem to be willing to put up with living in a Nuclear wasteland because hey, at least they don't gotta pay taxes anymore, amiright?!

The show is kind of dull until this crazy one shows up and her equally crazy sister.  The Uzo sisters are legitimately terrifying.

Like our 3 protagonists, the Uzo sisters are also Coppelion, but unlike the 3 protagonists, they've decided to "go rogue" and cause as much mayhem and destruction as they can, joining ranks with the abandoned First Division of the JSDF who now rule wasteland Tokyo as its defacto Warlords, who are plotting to spread nuclear and chemical environmental pollution to the rest of the globe out of spite, mainly.

However, the Uzo sisters are inconsistently written...they start out as remorseless psychopaths and are legitimately terrifying but by series end, they're like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, and their hearts just needed to grow a bit and learn empathy and care about each other, yada yada yada.  That's not how psychopathy works in reality, but hey.  Also, the First Division gives up on its nihilism after the 3 good Coppelion still acknowledge their basic humanity despite their physical deformities from radiation and other environmental effects...though apparently their commander does still want to shoot the main character with a tank shell first.  Their commander later sacrifices himself so their final evacuation mission can succeed. 

At least the 2nd half of the series is action packed, which helps to redeem the bad writing somewhat.  It's best just not to think about it to hard and just enjoy the visuals and the characters and the feels.  The overall execution could've been so much better, but it's still worth a watch I guess, at least while it's still available on Neon Alley in dub format in advance of the DVD release from VIZ Media.

Eureka Seven AO summary

Neon Genesis Evangelion (video game) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So I hear that Eureka Seven AO gets a lot of hate in some quarters from fans of the original series who feel like it betrays or lessens the original series' message, impact, etc.  And I do get where that's coming from, to a certain extent.  Firstly, Eureka Seven Astral Ocean is *confusing*; it takes awhile to reconcile two undeniable facts.  Yes, Ao is Eureka's son and Renton is his father.  And yes, Ao lives on a near future Okinawa, which has only recently declared independence from Japan.  And all of this is in the distant PAST of Earth as we knew it in the original series timeline, which didn't reveal its taking place on Earth in the far flung future until very late in the series.  There's a lot of time travel and inter-dimensional jumping around that is rather hard to follow and takes awhile to sort out.  Add to that the fact that Ao comes to possess a special gun for his Nirvash that instead of destroying its target like a beam weapon, instead randomly jumps to a reset timeline somewhere else in the space/time continuum. 

Whereas the end of the original Eureka Seven left one hopeful that Humans and Coralians, i.e. Scub Coral would find a way to co-exist, in Eureka Seven AO, once the Scub Corals discover inter-dimensional travel, they resume their slow conquest of space-time, using this as a means to escape and evade the "Limitation of Questions" dilemma posed in the original series.  Eureka and Renton have made it their mission to stop the Scubs' plan of conquest across the dimensions, the result of which first sends Eureka hurtling back in time to the mid 21st century, where she gives birth to Ao.  She then gets stuck in a time loop that Ao and Renton have to find a way to fix somehow.

Our star-crossed family is reunited briefly in an emotionally rewarding moment...Mother Eureka, Father Renton, and son Ao.  Ao uses his special trans-dimension gun one last time to re-unite his parents and to send himself hurtling into yet another brand new reality on Earth where probably nobody remembers who he is; But he embraces this fate willingly and concludes the series ready for new adventures.  Eureka Seven Astral Ocean is markedly shorter and a bit more melancholy than Eureka Seven.  But it's a respectably good sci-fi action series in any case.  I suppose it could stand alone, but obviously you can't fully appreciate it without having seen the original Eureka Seven.  Do be sure to listen to the special features with the commentaries by Stephanie Sheh and Johnny Yong Bosch who reflect on coming back to reprise their roles as Eureka and Renton, as well as Micah Solusod reflecting on how he studied the original show to get a feel for how to play Ao, and the happy coincidence of the similarities between Johnny's voice performance and Micah's, which makes sense thematically for this father-and-son duo.  I'm glad I went back to re-watch Eureka Seven and I'm glad I followed that up by marathoning Eureka Seven Astral Ocean directly on the heels of re-watching the original show.  I felt so inspired I went out and acquired an Eureka figurine to celebrate.

The visuals are amazing, it is worth watching & owning on Blu-Ray, though it's even more painfully obvious in Eureka Seven Astral Ocean how much the series shamelessly steals from Neon Genesis Evangelion even more so than the original series did.

 

Delta H Con 2015

So I got to attend Delta H Con this year.  I have to say that when you're used to a larger con like Oni-Con or Anime Matsuri, downshifting to a smaller con like Delta H....is a recipe for disappointment.  The dealer's room was a fraction of the size of even Oni-Con's dealer room in the Galveston Island Convention Center.  The selection was much more limited and the figurine prices were on par with Anime Matsuri in the bad old days, e.g. Highway Robbery.  That said, I did walk away with a single figurine that was moderately reasonable in terms of price, namely Sinon from SAO II, voiced by Michelle Ruff in the English dub on Toonami.

According to the vendor who sold her to me, she was originally a figure whose container was designed to be sold from a vending machine in Japan.  The gun and stand are actually sold separately in Japan.  I didn't like not being able to have Sinon with her iconic sniper rifle, but the figure he had of her posed with said rifle was over $100 and I was unwilling to spend that much.  Sinon is my favorite character of the entire SAO franchise so just having her was more important.  She can stand up on her own, but it's a careful balancing act, and I have her propped up a bit in this photo so she's steady.

I basically went to Delta H Con so that I could show my friend Frank around who loves anime, especially Naruto, but has never ever been to an anime convention before.  We hung out all day dividing our time between artist's alley, the dealer's room, and the gaming hall.  We ate out for dinner at a local Asian fusion place.  We topped off the evening by attending a live performance of two geeky bands, Otaku Accoustic and the solo artist Sugar Joiko.  Then the clock struck midnight (well, 11pm) and it was time to retire back to Sugar Land where we watched an episode of SAO Unabridged on YouTube, then raided my DVD collection to watch an episode of Tweeny Witches, then continued watching Log Horizon on Blu-Ray.  I had fun getting the permission of Cosplayers to photograph them and they always obliged and I always thanked them.  BUT, I've been regretting carrying around my heavy Canon Rebel SLR camera around my neck for close to 11 hours straight.  I'm still hurting in the neck and shoulders area this long after.  But it was worth it to show my friend his first anime convention and I think he enjoyed it.  It also made me more excited than ever for Oni-Con this year down in Galveston.  I got new tires for my car just today and am so ready for the Halloween road trip down to Galveston Island this year....we're staying through Sunday night and checking out Monday morning for the full convention experience.  I loved last year but I hated feeling so rushed on Sunday morning to check out and get the heck out of dodge.  Now I'll be able to properly enjoy the last day of the con and the panels planned for those days and maybe get some last minute steals in the dealer's room and/or artist's alley.  I'm also eager to show off my new Star Trek TNG cosplay, mixed in with my ST: TOS cosplay.  Gonna be fun.

 

Where I have to get a little SJW-y for a moment.

So I had an interesting exchange with a Facebook friend.  I have fair number of Facebook friends who are also fellow anime fans and I enjoy interacting with them about anime & manga and such, but some of the guys in particular are guilty of a kind of whiny, self-pitying tone and are passive-aggressively a little on the misogynistic side, though they'd hotly deny it of you called them on it to their face.  Some of them are to greater and lesser degrees susceptible to various flavors of MRA strains of thought that is sometimes worrisome.  I had to unfollow (but not wholly de-friend) once such fellow anime fan because reading his whiny MRA screeds on my Facebook feed was such a daily aggravation I could simply do without.

Anyway, this recent interaction sparked my intellect and imagination because I thought it might make a blog-worthy post and an object lesson in basic empathy. 

My Facebook friend posted this image jokingly, with the caption: "Girls are WEIRD"

I joked with him at first, saying something like well, definitely seems to be the case in anime-world, doesn't it?  He replied "and IRL?"

Well, sh*t, he would have to go there.  *Sigh*

So I thought about it then composed my thoughts thusly....

 

Walking around in a bikini in public is socially acceptable.

Walking around in frilly underwear in public not so much;

Hence it normally only happens in anime (and presumably IRL) when the boy accidentally walks in on the girl while she's changing outfits, getting ready for bed, etc, invading her privacy uninvited. It's about consent & respect, not objectively how much flesh is showing regardless of context. Context matters. Nobody likes their privacy invaded, whether intentionally or by accident. If it was a genuine accident and the boy is profusely apologetic, the girl might forgive him later, but you can't expect her to in the heat of the moment, when she's surprised and embarrassed and caught off guard. If he invaded her privacy *intentionally*, he's a creep and she'll never forget it (nor should she).

He made some offhand reply about life imitating art, yada yada and I said while it's an overused comedy trope in anime, I'll usually still laugh at it.   We left it at that.

Not a hostile exchange, but one in which I wonder if he really absorbed the point I was trying to make in challenging the simplistic views of the original artist who drew the image.  He seemed to want to deflect my comment with a joke rather than acknowledge it.

What I'm saying is that I "get" what the artist is *trying* to say with his juxtaposed images.  He is (and I'm sure it's a HE) trying to say something along the lines of  "haha, women are crazy, inconsistent hypocrites.  Look at this funny example."; Which would be compelling only if you're completely tone deaf and don't think of women as real people with real emotions and try to put yourself in their shoes for a hot second.  That's all I had to do to come up with my analysis above.  It doesn't require a graduate level education (though I have one) to figure this out, just an exercise in basic empathy.  It works, even if you have a penis and are usually a bit of a horn dog like me.  I dunno, maybe because I was married once, have had girlfriends before, have often had more close female friends than male friends, that I think about this more than the average dude who hasn't.

The girl in the bikini WANTS to show off her body.  She's putting herself out there as an act of her own free will.  She is an autonomous agent, in control of who sees her and in what context.  The same girl, in her frilly underwear, feels vulnerable and self-conscious if she were to encounter a male in her presence when she didn't invite him.  She's frightened, embarrassed, angry, and these are all valid emotions REGARDLESS if the male interloper spied her intentionally (creeper) or totally by accident (how many, many MRA's and nominally pro-MRA guys see themselves and how most anime protagonists are portrayed, for laughs).  They want to see themselves as misunderstood innocents and the girls as overreacting because they've already seen as much or more of the girl's body earlier in the day when she was in her bikini which so fantastically misses the point.

I hate to have to pedantically spell this out but with some guys I really do wonder, and I say that AS a guy.