Posts Tagged “Manga”

Ma foi c’était très bien!!!!

C’est si vieux que cela Japan Expo? Je me souviens quand cela ne tenait pas plus haut que la blague de bizut quand j’étais une pauvre âme sans but dans les couloirs de Jussieu. Puis, les accidents de la vie oblige, j’ai laissé passé tous ce qui était conventions, peut-être parce ce que j’avais trop honte de la dérive dans laquelle je partais.

En 2008, j’avais enfin un aperçu de ce qu’était la Japan Expo, mais c’était loin d’être impérissable.

*par respect pour mes pairs, et aussi par crainte des possibles dérives de la part d’Anonymous, j’ai évité de prendre des photos de ceux de l’anime fandom francophone que j’ai eu la chance de rencontrer, notamment Tin et Nina Wolken, ils me comprendront*

Mon regret est de n’avoir pu rencontrer voire reconnaitre Axel Terizaki, Klashikari et d’autre gars que j’ai rencontré sur twitter ou les blogs, et autres forums.

Revenons à JE. 2012, je travaille, par là j’entends boulot stable, depuis des mois, donc j’ai du fric et, ma soeur ayant passé et obtenu son bac, j’ai envisagé la possibilité d’y aller.

J’ai même rencontré un collègue de Leclerc dans la file d’attente, il se reconnaitra.

Ma soeur voulant voir autre chose, on s’est donc séparé. Puis j’ai rencontré Tin. Et je dois dire que l’expérience était largement différente de 2008. Notamment contact avec la scène amateur, rencontre avec des artistes doujins japonais, etc… Le premier burger new-yorkais de Marshall dans How I Met Your Mother, voilà la sensation qui décrit ce Japan Expo 2012. Car j’ai, grâce au guide Tin, j’ai pu gratter sous le vernis, et voir à côté de quoi les casuals passent. Et cela me redonne envie.

Mon loot JE est pourtant modeste, 189 euros dépensé en doujins, Touhou et Nanoha, commission de la gentille Kanna de Plum, une peluche Ryuk pour mon petit frère, un bonnet Totoro pour ma soeur qui m’a accompagné et un bonnet Kyuubey pour moi.

Donc merci à ceux que j’ai eu le bonheur de rencontrer. Je sais enfin ce qu’a ressenti Marshall en mangeant son premier burger à New York.

Just a Burger? Just a burger. Robin, it’s so much more than “just a burger”. I mean…that first bite—oh what heaven that first bite is! The bun like a sesame freckled breast of an angel resting gently on the ketchup and mustard below—flavors mingling in a seductive pas-de-deux And then…a pickle…the most playful little pickle! Then a slice of tomato, a leaf of lettuce and a…a patty of ground beef so exquisite; swirling in your mouth breaking apart and combining again in a fugue of sweets and savor so delightful. This is no mere sandwich of grilled meat and toasted bread, Robin: this is God…speaking to us in food.

Pour les photos, c’est sur mon compte twitter.

Like many boys, back in my childhood, I was more drawn to robots and other boy things. I even started drawing robots, taking inspiration from the robots of the week in UFO Grendizer. I also had the luck to watch Space Sherif Gavan and Bioman back then, but that’s another thing.

However, when UFO Grendizer had been airing, I had to sit through episodes of Candy Candy, that I never quite liked, Versailles no Bara, that I found cool because of the rapier duels, and Minky Momo, that I liked a bit. I said a bit. Already in that day, the naked transformation scenes in Minky Momo started molding the pervert sleeping in me (a dose of Father hiding porn in Disney VHS leading to some accident did not help). One can argue that Minky Momo laid the ground for my future self as a moé enthusiasm.

Flash forward to a few years later, Little Princess, also known as Princess Sarah in France, aired alongside other magical girls shows like Magical Emi and Creamy Mami. Robotech and Saint Seiya was the rage and I happily followed those shows. Princess Sarah had grown a sentiment in me. This was not lust, and less perversion, because, you know, Sarah was in no way sexualized. Sarah cultivated in me a sentiment akin to a urge to protect the character from whatever bad things happened.

And a little after that, Kimagure Orange Road came. Madoka Ayukawa was the one reason I watched the show. Do note that in the 2000s, Motoko Aoyama, Sakaki, Matsuri Shihou, Mai Kawasumi and Mio Akiyama were among my favorite characters of this past decade. Notice a pattern in those characters?

What was the point of those paragraphs? Oh, that’s very simple. I enjoyed “boys” shows as much as the kids and teenagers belonging to the male gender in my age range did. I recognize that I drifted further away from the mecha genre since Evangelion, as I got exposed to cyberpunk and embraced heroic fantasy since I started reading books by Michael Moorcock as my definitive favorite genre (this is a story for later). However, the seeds of my enthusiasm for the moé subculture have already been planted way back in the Pinky Momo days. I had been a shounen fan primarily but I could not really say no to a few eye candy. This enthusiasm needed the right water for the seeds to grow and complete my conversion.

This happened in the early 2000s. I had few enthusiasm for the current offering of early 2000s. FMP by Gonzo was not so bad, but ought to be better. Hellsing made me rage when I got my hands over the scans of the original manga. And my first encounters with Gundam, Wing and a few UC here and there, left me with little enthusiasm toward the franchise (as much polarizing Eva was, I had a more enjoyable experience and UFO Grendizer AND Macross, as I learned more about Robotech, were definitely my favorite mechas). A show with a cult following had been lent to me by my friend, who was my only contact with anime on the intrabutt. It looked like Nikita meet conspiracy thriller. This was called Noir. Good idea, I loved the fact that it took place in France and awesome score by Kajiura. Moreover, I was utterly fascinated by the main duo, Mireille Bouquet and Kirika Yuumura.

I was drawn to that air of nobility that Mireille oozed, and also that slight vulnerability going on for Kirika. As you can see, Noir was flawed, but the duo made me willing to let them not bother me.

The fact that I could not access to Guilty Gear X2 made me search for alternatives. Zepy introduced me to doujin fighters. And I loved what I played. Glove on Fight, Queen of Hearts 2001 and Eternal Fighter Zero. Those games made me curious about the moé subculture, as I WANTED to know more about the characters who starred in those games. This was in that time that I started d/ling moé anime to see what they were about. I’ll be honest, this being the early 2000s (2002-2003 tbh), I was left disappointed with what I saw.

Then came a doujin game, with sprites that were not SDs, and having Ciel that I have known through Glove on Fight. You guessed it. This was Melty Blood. And that was a blast. Melty Blood was the turning point for me. A jaded, oldefag, got converted to moé subculture. That’s it. Type-Moon and Nasuverse are the things that turned me into a moéfag. And Touhou definitely helped sustaining the momentum. But this was not out of nowhere as you could see. Those was just the springs that nurtured the ground in which the seeds were planted.

Where do I stand now? I have explored a few classics I enjoyed back in the day, this time with proper dubbing (japanese with subs), so I could give shows like Hokuto no Ken the due respect, and sorrow over how the french executives mistreated them and disrespected the fans that were older than me when those shows aired, and all those fans could do is to lament the bad dubs or the gag dub.

So, I am a moé enthusisast, giving my classics their due respect. I cannot bring myself to completely hate those watching the Big Three, because I had been there and knew that they will eventually change. I now find myself unable look down on the moé subculture. This didn’t mean that I didn’t feel embarassed over that one guy marrying his body pillow. As a moé enthusiast, I think that people should be able to draw the line and realize when they are making monkeys of themselves. I sometimes go “mai waifu!!” like over Sakuya Izayoi or Byakuren Hijiri, but in the end I know it’s all tongue-in-cheek.

This seems to be a problem with oldefags, they looks down on moéfags, and are… just… SERIOUS. ALL THE TIME. And forgetting that anime is firstly, and mostly, just entertainment. This is my sentiment when I look at the seemingly joyless folk of a certain blog. They seems to think that there is a war, a righteous, against the moéfags, while forgetting that it is quite possible to enjoy every specter of the medium, but just that people likes one side more than the other. But this is another story, perhaps developped in another day.

tl;dr: I was not always a moéfag. In fact, I used to be one of those jaded oldfags. However, the seeds of moé love had been planted in me by Minky Momo, Little Princess, Orange Road and various magical girl shows. It only needed the right trigger to grow and convert me. This trigger is nothing less than Melty Blood.

2011 was… an interesting year for me.

Fitting pic since as a buddhist, I have been dragged, for some time, into taoism by mom. Credit: Ringetsumon

Anime

This first quarter of the year started out strong with Madoka setting the bar very, oh so very high, by daring to go where Nanoha itself did not dare to go. It also was a blind bet on Shaft’s part and Shaft certainly fared much better with one of its first tries on an original IP than KyoAni did years ago with Munto, does people still remember Munto TV btw?

The second quarter showed disappointment with Hidan no Aria, yes JC Staff should really be stopped to be entrusted light novel adaptations with reckless abandon. A damn shame, the whole Ariaverse IS an interesting sandbox for original characters creators or fanfic writers. I personally would have retconned Vlad as looking like an actual vampire from the lores or Hammer movies or Castlevania tbh. Denpa Onna was very nice to follow while Steins;Gate started out slow and took a while to get used to or to like. There was also Ano Hana, but later on the angst then the narm in the last episode downright pissed me off.

The third quarter had Idolmaster, a harmless yet good show. Those expecting the GRIMDARK study of the GRIMDARK world of idols complete course with couch casting and NTR could just fuck off. Then you had the pretentious Kama-sama no Memochou, that’s really the one word describing this show. Penguindrum IS a polarizing show, some will see it as THE anime of the decade, it is not so for me. Why? Because I think that Ikuhara have gone overboard with it. I liked what I have seen in Utena but what I have seen in Penguindrum did not strike the right cord with me. The likes of roriconfan can blow, I am not going to rain praise on Penguindrum just because Ikuhara did it. I did not have to like everything churned out by Tim burton, I just don’t see why I should do the same for Ikuhara. Finally the last shows of the third quarter of 2011 to me were Croisee and Usagi Drop. Croisee was a slice of life trying to see how a Japanese girl would do in late 19th Paris; but the painting of the Paris in Croisee was very far from the miserabilism I was see used to see since Emile Zola, it may not please those looking for something more ambitious, but it appealed to me. Usagi Drop was to me the winning show of Summer 2011. Yes, well over Penguindrum. Maybe because deep inside me I wanted to experience the hardship of being a father, adoptive or biological. But more importantly, this show have done it with a just tone, without excessive pandering. And steins;gate continued to gain momentum and confirmed its status around a certain episode.

Fall 2011 had Fate Zero, Ben-To and Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai. Fate Zero have yet to finish before I can fully judge it. So far, it delivered, less than Kara no Kyoukai (unfair when you know that it is comparing movies to TV series) but much better than Deen’s Stay Night. Boku wa Tomodachi could be called, for me, the Married with Children of the Harem Highschool Romcom genre. The comedy in it was crude and rude, and crass but it worked well for me. More importantly, the fanservice blended well with the series, and it looked good for most of its run, as you SHOULD expect from an entry in the genre. Not the most memorable comedy around, those for me are Excel Saga, Kimengumi and Cromartie High, but I will surely purchase the DVDs if I have the opportunity. Then Ben-to, an affectionate parody of the fighting shounen genre, but also the demonstration that one trope have overstayed its welcome. Nope, that girl don’t get a free pass because she is a lesbian, fuck you guys.

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Better scans should come out soon, along with translations. I mean, Force’s chapter 0 got one after all.

Forgive the puny scans, those were taken from a site you should know. As I have predicted, Vivid focus on Vivio AND the Mahou Shoujo part of the franchise. However, the magitech that gives Nanoha its flavor and its lore are still here.

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She have gotten a fourth season. In manga form.

Yes, you will miss the music (not that great. The franchise needs Kajiura for that), the animation (suffered at times from QUALITY) and the voice acting.

But you can hope that Tsuzuki will bring flesh to his vision without having to worry about budget restriction. In fact, his worst enemies will be deadline and if something goes wrong with his collborators.

I am midly amused by the fact that the one in charge of the drawing in “Mahou Senki Lyrical Nanoha Force” is the same as the one who drew Shina Dark. A rather nice light fantasy manga with a bit of ecchi. We should not worry about the moé and the fanservice.

Now, it will be the first time we will see a magical girl in her mid-twenties. I just hope that the fact they dropped “Shoujo” in favor of “Senki” for Nanoha Force is not just for show and actually express the wish of the author, and a part of the fan community, to depart from the genre.

While this community have chanted that its roots lies in Gundam and Super Robots. One have brought up an alternative if not more interesting interpretation.

A careful scrutiny of the Nanohaverse reveals that it isn’t really a magical girl series. It’s a fantasy-adventure series like Slayers disguised as a Magical Girl series. The high-tech look of TSAB equipment and the title obscured that.
There’s also the fact that Nanoha, Fate and Hayate are getting too old to be called Magical Girls anymore. At 25, they’re approaching the other contender for the title of oldest magical girl, right?

You have the journey element (Nanoha Takamachi, her challenges and her growth), the happy party growing as more enemies are defeated, the signature weapons so dear to the adventurers, and the quest for artifacts of doom in the first seasons (the jewel seeds and the Book of Darkness), and you also have the older generation eventually passing the torch to the new generation (seen in some fantasy epics, or in tabletop RPG games where player characters becomes too powerful and when the players and the gamemaster want a peaceful retirement). Those elements and the overall structure are indeed closer to the fantasy genre than Gundam or the Super Robot genre.

1980s are here and still kicking!

From my own personal experience, my relationship with JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure has been… on the strange side. Back in the mid-1990, I disliked it. Mind you, if was a VHS rip of the OAV, in japanese with no subtitles. I has no way to grasp what was going on, excepted a bunch of strangely dressed people who would have been in the Village People. I could consider myself fully converted back in 2002, thanks to the efforts of a Viking who named his son after a King of Fighters Boss and a Tard from Kuwait who dreamt to ride a mecha version of Godzilla.

It somehow did help that the manga has started to be published in France.

So let me ramble about JoJo,

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