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Cross Epoch – Dragon Ball Z and One Piece Crossover · 2 August 2007
There are times in life where you just have to stop, just stop and look. A DBZ and One Piece crossover warrants such a reaction. For one thing, it’s not a fanfiction or even a doujin, Akira Toriyama and Oda Eiichiro themselves drew this twenty page crossover. For another, it’s a DBZ One Piece crossover!
I’m not too keen with the One Piece universe, because I stopped reading it a while back, but I’ve seen DBZ enough times to recognize everyone. All of the major characters make an appearance and it’s particularly amusing to note who they were paired up with for the crossover. Basically, Mr. Satan (Hercule) gathered the Dragon Balls and become the king of the world. Krillin and Tony, conductors of a marine roller coaster train, wonders how such a guy became king all of a sudden. Both of them suddenly have an epiphany, closes their train service and runs off.
Meanwhile, Bulma and Nami, after raiding a space station races off to an unknown location hoping to make it in time. Master Roshi and Sanji, acting as serifs in all their cowboy glory, ha, receives a report that they were raided by space thieves (guess who) but decline because they’re busy, heading for the ‘destination’ to meet the thieves. Elsewhere elsewhere, Captain Vegeta, Usopp, Nico and Trunks are heading for a battle appointment in their airship. Usopp, however, whines about not being able to go there, not being able to go to eat anything he wants, trees, mountains, anything! But Trunks tells him they’re meeting with Dr. Gero’s forces for a battle. Vegeta turns to Nico and asks if the rumors true. Nico replies that the darkened sky confirms it. With that in mind, and how annoying fighting Dr. Gero’s, Vegeta decides to go anyways. Cheering, Usopp and the rest heads for the ‘destination’.
And in another elsewhere, Zolo and Piccolo are lost in a snowstorm. Both start screaming at the other when they realize that neither knew where they were. However, they run into Krillin and Tony on the coaster train and hitch a ride. And off in on a tropical island, Goku runs into Luffy, both of them heading in the same direction. Carrying a backpack of meat, Luffy tells Goku that he’s been here and there, going off on little adventures. Goku asks if he needs a ride, Luffy refuses and says he’ll get there on foot. Unfortunately, the road terminates and Luffy falls off a cliff. Rescued in time by Goku’s Nimbus cloud. As they continue towards the ‘destination’, they run into Garlic Jr. and Buggy the Clown on the Tettiri No. 55 trying to take over the world. Apparently, they’re in the Villains Union as well. Slightly annoyed and in a rush, Goku and Luffy drills a hole through the outer shell of the Tettiri, with their respective attacks. As Garlic Jr. and Buggy make their escape, Vegeta arrives and blows them to hell. Bulma, Nami, Zolo and Piccolo all join in and completely annihilates the villainous duo. Roshi and Sanji passes by as well and decides it was more important to get to the meeting than to pick up Garlic and Buggy.
Apparently! All of this commotion and this ‘destination’ was a gathering by Shenlong, the dragon. After each wish is granted, the great dragon holds a party. Mountains of cakes, a floating river of tea, jelly bean inlays, chocolate, everything is edible. It’s the a feast and everyone’s here!
I really liked this. Honestly, I thought it was the funniest thing ever. I mean, Luffy and Goku, despite being freakishly powerful, are two of the silliest, naivest, most lovable guys. I thought the Zolo and Piccolo pair was funny. Both of them standing next to the two weird lion camel things, that was great. Akira Toriyam and Oda Eiichiro have such great imaginations. Just looking at the backgrounds and setting, the roller coast train? C’mon! They create such wonderfully unique worlds, it’s really great to see a collaborative work. Anyways, ten minutes of my life well spent. Heh.
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei – Episode 3 · 1 August 2007
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is turning out to be one of my favorite shows. It’s hilarious. I don’t understand it, but it makes me laugh. The Death Note reference had me falling out of my chair. I OD when I take screens for SZS. Usually, I find it a bit tedious to take screens, but like I say every other episode, it’s so much fun for this show!
Plot Two policemen are running in a shipping dock, looking for a criminal. They are unable to find the person and decide to split up and search again. The person being sought after plugs in a television set (don’t ask me how), huddles by, and the episode begins to play on the screen.
Itoshiki is explaining something, something about a girl who wanted to watch fireworks and in the end, watched fireworks from a helicopter. Suddenly, he falls over, limp. Two second shot of who is obviously Yagami Light and now you can safely assume Itoshiki is suffering from a heart attack and dies. His students are watching, completely perplexed. He gets back up and tells them there’ll be an exam tomorrow. However, it doesn’t matter how badly they all do because the overseas class is returning. Itoshiki is putting all of his faith in the overseas class to maintain the class average. He tells his students that the overseas class is on a different level entirely. Then he realizes that one student cannot possibly raise the entire class average. Plunging into another fit of despair, he and Tsunetsuki both commit suicide.
I am a Proud Watcher of Anime!…or, why the rest of society thinks I'm a freak · 1 August 2007
the reason why I live
In response to THAT Animeblog’s post.
Alright, I’ll come out of the closet. I’ll admit that yes, I am proud of my hobby and I don’t give a damn if the rest of the world thinks I’m a sick, immature and gay social recluse who escapes reality by watching cartoon porn targeted at kids!
…So what? So what if the rest of the world thinks I’m a weirdo? Does it honestly really matter how the person down the line from you in Starbucks looks at you funny for saying Death Note was a good manga and Yagami Light was hot? I’d look at him funny if he started raving about a Mets game (Yankees rule!). I’d immediately assume he has no brains and spends his adult life addicted to a mundane and pointless game where you whack a ball with a stick as far as you can.
Society spurns everyone. As contradictory as it sounds, equality exists only under the scrutinizing eyes of our fellow peers. There is no one, no one, who can hide from the stereotypes and the preconceptions of others. The world runs on three things: coffee, money and ignorance. It’s easy to judge something you don’t understand, easy to make sweeping generalizations and scoff. It’s harder to actually take a stand, even if you’re stoned to death.
If you can’t stand up and defend your hobby, your favorite sport, favorite novel, movie, band or music, maybe you should stop considering yourself a real fan. If your loyalty to a hobby goes only as far as it’s accepted by society, then it’s not there. If you’re not proud of what you’re doing, then why are you doing it in the first place?
“But that isn’t what anime and the community is like! You’re making sweeping generalisations!” Well, yes, but what you think doesn’t matter, and society’s values are all based on sweeping generalisations. A bum might think his lifestyle is the swellest on the face of the earth, but you’re still going to look down on him when you walk past, because you perceive them in a certain light, based on sweeping generalisations. It certainly doesn’t help that not enough people in the anime community try to make a difference.
If the bum likes his corner, what the hell am I going to do about it?! Tell him to move over and get a job? Go piece together his life? Why in the name of the non-existent God will he listen to me? Why should he even care!? Moreover, why should I care? What I think doesn’t matter? Sure, it doesn’t and by that same token, none of what society has to say matters either! Hooray!
You say “I proudly express my love of anime, it’s not like how you put it!”, but then you go and hang up the newest Megami posters in your room and download a few more doujins. All it shows is your shamelessness. Unless we change as a community and change people’s perceptions, people will forever spurn us.
But then I say, “What is wrong with that? What is wrong with the way I express my love for anime?” I can’t see the shame in hanging up the newest Megami posters and downloading a few more doujins. I can’t see any shame in it, at all. I like the posters, I like the doujins, what am I afraid of? Becoming the social reject of the world, being spurned forever by the ‘normal’ people? The only problem I have with all of it is that the quoted statement came from a person who runs an anime blog.
I understand that people should make an effort to educate the rest of the world about “cartoon porn targeted at kids”, but why should it interfere with what I love to do? It’s not so easy to change the world, hence the reason why racism still exists. In all honestly, I don’t think it’s possible change people’s perceptions. Everything, apparently, works in endless cycles and so does this.
However I do have something against people who think that “I watch anime thus I’m awesome, I’m proud of it”, because, for the reason I stated above, anime isn’t as awesome as you’d like to think it is and there are reasons why you ought to be ashamed of it. It’s okay to not be ashamed of your hobby, to hold your head high and say “I chose this path, even if society spurns me I’m not backing down”, but to say “I’m proud of this because I think it’s amazing and makes me awesome etc.” shows that you’re living in a fantasy realm, and what are you smoking and where might I get some?
Why is anime not as awesome as I think it is? Because it’s meant for children? Because there’s hentai? Because people cosplay? Because it can be shallow? Because of fanservice? What is there to be ashamed of? I need to be ashamed of something I love because people think cosplayers are losers and animated porn is just messed up? That’s the one thing I failed to understand: what is there to be ashamed about? It’s like love. If you really love someone, no matter who or what they are, you’re not going to give a damn what anyone thinks.
American football fans are in the same boat. The Super Bowl is like the second coming of Jesus, it’s religious, sacred. They must watch the Super Bowl. If the world entered into a nuclear war, people are going to extremely upset, to put it euphemistically, about the cancellation of the Super Bowl. Middle aged, borderline obese males will walk around half-naked with letters painted across their stomachs, cheering for their favorite team like no tomorrow. I doubt these people are ashamed of football, knowing full and well the corruption and flaws of their sacred sport. I don’t live in England, but I can only assume it’s the same over there, even if it’s a different type of football. Try telling them football isn’t as awesome as they think it is.
I’m proud of the fact that I watch anime. There’s nothing wrong with watching somewhat shallow cartoons, nothing wrong with any of it. I’m being incredibly and stupidly stubborn about this because it’s one of a half a dozen things I’m honestly passionate about. I’m am proud of the collective body of people to which I belong! I love everything about anime, you can’t convince me otherwise. When I was eight, I went to bed wishing to wake up with magical powers, and I still do. The world needs to show some respect for my frickin’ hobby! If I can make deal with my annoying baseball obsessed friends, then they’ll need to make deal with my anime. If football fans can get away with exposing their belly fat in public, I can dress up as a damn character from my favorite show. If the world isn’t willing to accept me, then hell with the world because I don’t want any part of ‘reality’. I prefer my fantasy land, where under-aged girls have magical powers, where life is as complex as a lego, where everything panders to my ‘needs’, where everything is about hot guys, guns and mecha! And I’m not smoking anything, I just have excessive zeal and love for anime and also the need to enjoy my unfortunate life not living for other people.
Anime is the best thing since sliced bread, and sliced bread wasn’t even that good. To those who are ashamed of their hobby, grow a back bone and watch Gurren Lagann, learn the ways of manliness (even if you’re female) and herald your hobby as the best damn thing in the world. To those who don’t watch anime, stop living under a rock and watch Gurren Lagann, just because it’s so damn good. And to borrow some lyrics from AC/DC, “To those about to rock I salute you.” (To those about to watch anime didn’t sound that catchy…)
I love anime. It’s somewhere between the future love of my life, the internet and first person shooters on Xbox. You can laugh, you can call me a loser, you can look down at with pure disdain, disgust and pity, you can think whatever you want. And you know what? “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
My blog is a month old! · 1 August 2007
August first! My blog is one month old! Whee! Thanks guys, for reading my worthless posts for a month! You’ll have to deal with me for at least a year!
I miss Bebop, a lot. · 1 August 2007
I miss Cowboy Bebop. I really do. If I could take three things with me when the world ends, this would have to be one of them, everything else just seem so hopelessly trivial.
Darker Than Black – Episode 17 · 31 July 2007
VLC hates me and refuses to play correctly the .mkv files, but they’re not hard subbed so it’s easier for the screens. Not really if the thing malfunctions every two seconds. Anyways, I got a couple of screens. The more I watch Darker Than Black, the more I like it. It’s just so good. Gah!
Opening “Kakusei Heroism ~The Hero Without A Name~” by An Cafe Since I failed to blog about the previous arc, I’m going to make my little comments about the new opening here. A lot of people, actually the majority I think, didn’t take too well to the new opening. I rather liked it, the song and the animation. Though the bit with the multiple Hei’s was a bit strange. The first few scenes, the one with the car, I thought was pretty neat. These guys pay a lot of attention to detail and the animation, even the opening, is gorgeous.
Impression I’m going to be lazy and skip the summary. I sure no one reads it anyways. Anyways, this episode was pretty hilarious and lighthearted. I really enjoyed the humor. It’s interesting to note that DtB is a strangely international show. There’s a lot of Chinese guys (Li, Alice and Wei), a bunch of British spies (November’s gang, Amber, even if she just worked for them) and now, the tenants at Li’s place (Filipino, Israeli). The landlady speaks seven languages! You’re going to need a top-notch UN translator to get through the show! It’s pretty satisfying, that Misaki Kirihara arc, the qi paos, yeah. The wide variety of characters and the attention given to them adds to the overall intricacy of the show, makes it feel tangible.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – Episode 18 · 31 July 2007
Okay, okay, I need to breath right now. Dear god, that was one helluva an episode. It’s like being hit by a brick, and you saw that brick coming but you just didn’t want to duck!
A lot of things happened, a lot. It’s so ingenious though, the whole thing. Watching it fall together piece by piece, this episode being the final piece of the puzzle and a prelude to the eminent, epic ending. Eight, eight more episodes and I think I’m going nuts. I’m still in that red swivel (I found a missing screw, now the left armrest can stop falling off) and I can’t do anything. The sheer intensity of the show is just arresting. Really, it’s so intense, at some point I think I just stopped breathing. If it didn’t blur my vision, I would’ve glued my eyeballs to the monitor. I just I’m in shock, not the “I was in a hideous car accident” shock, but more of a “I can’t believe this is happening” sort of shock.
So, basically, the love of Simon’s life, Nia, joined the dark side and is going to exterminate the human race. These Rasen guys and the Han-Rasen guys were fighting a war, and it was just our bad luck to be caught up in it. Lord Genome was actually a valiant Rasen Knight, who was actually trying to protect the humans by suppressing them with fear and keeping them ignorant of their unfortunate fate. The Han-Rasen guys wants the humans dead because they are Spiral creatures which means they can evolve and they’re afraid of evolution (because they’re really all Creationists at heart, joking) because then the humans will develop power. Lagann was a super weapon capable of bonding with any ganmen, and the ganmen were actually made for fighting the Han-Rasen. In three weeks, the moon’s going to fall on the Earth, did I mention that? And they arrested Simon!?
There you have it, ladies and gentlemen, the end of the world. All the cards are on the table, all the pieces in place, I’ve lost all of my marbles and the final arc of Gurren Lagann finally takes flight. To think, we started out with two guys and a girl. I can’t help but think back to the beginning, just to measure how far, how infinitely far and distant, we are from it now. Do you remember Simon? That small little kid, the black hair, the goggles, always digging. That picture, that shot of the picture in the beginning, always gets me. I can’t see tomorrow without remembering yesterday, something like that. Just can’t fathom how big, how massive, this series is. Are there any other words except for epic to describe the enormity and the grandeur of what I feel? It’s like space itself, boundless.
So, where are we going now? Commander Simon’s in jail, the sky is falling-literally, Yoko’s no where, Nia ditched her pink dress for a black bodysuit and eloped with her human exterminating friends, where does that leave the rest of the world? Rossiu basically made Simon the scapegoat for the whole mess. Simon is, indeed, at fault. His behavior was a bit rash and emotional, but I can’t blame him, I can’t bring myself to blame any of them. The conversation between Nia and him was heartbreaking. In fact, the whole thing was heartbreaking. It made me feel absolutely miserable. With all this talk about how she’s never going to be human again, and how they can’t coexist, I hope nothing bad happens.
Black and white right now is looking a lot like gray. The fine line between right and wrong is all but gone. The political situation of the whole mess irks me. The publics’ reaction was expected, no one would be happy to have their house blown up. No one would be happy to have their house blown up with three weeks to the end of the world. For that matter, no one would be happy with the end of the world. The people are basically rallying against the government and, and…Ugh! I’d like black and white to go back to being distinct colors!
I’m going to hold my breath and squeeze my eyes shut, because as much as I want to see the rest of Gurren Lagann, I’m also just a bit afraid of where it’s going. The plot feels like an erupting volcano, at any moment about to blow. Like spreading your arms and just asking for it to pull the trigger. Shoot me, shoot me, I whisper. I’ll be damned disappointed if it doesn’t. Sometimes, it’s so perfect as is, you’re afraid of ruining it. But I’m a curious person, I can’t keep my eyes shut forever. I await, as always, for the next episode.
Hot Gimmick – The End · 29 July 2007
I spent the entire week reading Hot Gimmick in a bookstore. Why? Why did I go out of my way to read this perplexing addictive shoujo romance? Why, must you really know? Well….Inhale, exhale, deep breath. Alright, I’ll just say it. I’ll say it. I read Hot Gimmick for the extremely attractive guys! There were three! Usually, I’m just happy with one extremely attractive male, but Hot Gimmick had three! What am I supposed to do? Pass that up? Three for the price of one? Hell, forget the plot, forget the characters, just give me Ryoki, Asuza and Shinogu.
The one thing I could never understand about Hot Gimmick, but overlooked anyways, was the characters. In retrospect, the characters were terribly dysfunctional. You don’t know the meaning of dysfunctional until you’ve read Hot Gimmick. In short, it’s a love square. No more love triangles, it’s a square now. If it gets even more complicated, we’re going to have a circle on our hands. Basically-three guys, one girl, angst, teenage melodrama, I’m a sucker for guys in glasses, end. Think of bad cafeteria spaghetti, noodles with catchup for tomato sauce and you’ll have Hot Gimmick. It brings “难受” to another level, a totally different level. Not in exasperation at a wonderful ending, but in pain, bullet in the head, quick and painless death pain.
The protagonist, Hatsumi Narita is like a napkin. You take one when you need it, use it and then throw it away. It’s flimsy, tenuous, negligible, tears too easily, bad for doodling but makes for in terribly entertaining. Bachelor number one is her childhood hero turned (extremely good looking) model, who for no apparent returns to the town. Actually, it’s for revenge, but anyways. Bachelor number two is a complete jerk, (jerk doesn’t even begin to describe the poor man, but he’s also indecently attractive, did I mention he’s blond and has glasses?) who used to bully Hatsumi when they were little. Bachelor number three is her brother. They have problems! All of them! It drives me insane how good looking they are and totally and brilliantly messed up they are. Their personalities are so far fetched and excessive, it’s difficult to believe the things that happen, no matter how good the plot is.
Random Mental Notes… · 25 July 2007
I’m pretty bad at trying to consistently blog about a series. The only show I’ve managed to churn out, happily, a post an episode is Gurren Lagann, for obvious reasons. The whole process of screen shotting everything and putting all of it up is so tedious, even after devising random shortcuts to save time. Not to mention I have no formulaic post structure. Some of the posts are text heavy, others are full of one liners and a billion pictures…
So anyways, here’s to trying to maintain some order with this blog, a list of shows I’m going to blog about…later…this week:
- Claymore 16 (I saw that last week, completely forgot about it)
- Darker Than Black 15 and 16 (saw that two days ago, need to find will to do another double post, the last one was pretty bad. I really liked this arc, it’s just so complicated)
- Mushi-Uta (saw it just now, I really liked it. The characters are so cute, Daisuke and the green haired girl. They’re so cute and that last scene with the trains, just so cute. Crazy thing, their love story is set against a near future world infested with dream eating bugs. Que pasa?)
Shows I’m not sure I want to blog about (ever) but watch anyways:
- D.Gray Man (The first couple arcs won me over, but after reading the manga, the anime got kind of boring. I really liked the arc with the singing doll and the clock arc. Those were good, but the rest of the anime didn’t have that impact)
- Code-E (I downloaded the second episode, been sitting there, can’t get around to watching it even. Still thinking about what I’ll do with it. In all honesty, I mistook it for Mushi-Uta, which was why I watched it. Hehe….)
As for nice, structured, episode by episode posts….I’m working on it…What if I just have one, really, really big screen shot, instead of a million…I wonder…
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – Episode 17 · 25 July 2007
Seven years later…
Ever since the episode 16, the recap, I’ve been dying to see the new Gurren Lagann episodes, especially since in the episode 17 preview had a shot of Nia and a ring. I can’t say anything bad about Gurren Lagann, at all, not possible, never happening, out of the question, just incapable of expressing hatred towards this show.
Opening There’s a new opening, but I don’t have screen, the karaoke was in the way. I downloaded a soft subbed version but it refused to play properly, ask me not why. Same song, totally new animation. It made me extremely sentimental because in the new opening they’re all grown up and it reminds you of the old opening and of Kamina and Yoko and Simon. Those first couple of episodes seem so far away now. When it’s all over, I’m going to spend a good day rewatching all of it.
Plot Seven year time skip! It made me so giddy just to hear the theme and it made me even giddier when the episode actually started. So, after the fall of Teppelin and Lord Genome, the humans built their own city, Kamina City, where the old capitol use to be. Simon is the Commander in Chief, constantly bogged down by paperwork (to a point where it reminds me of Roy from Hagaren) and Rossiu seems to be his executive type person. All the members of the Dai Gurren Brigade have jobs within the government.