JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and Poses

Opening to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is a cultural touch stone when it comes to anime, and one its most notable legacies is the striking of a pose. The characters are known for the ridiculous poses that they make. Creator Hirohiko Araki has stated that he drew inspiration from runway models when drawing these characters poses. These poses work so well because they effortlessly blend two polar opposites of absurd hyper masculinity with hyper femininity to create something very unique. Poses are just one of the many wonderful parts of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 3: Stardust Crusaders

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 2: Battle Tendency

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 3: Stardust Crusaders

The Wired

Part of what makes Serial Experiments Lain so great is that the idea of Lain existing as an omnipresent god of the Wired, which is basically the internet except depicted as a higher level of reality, with a cult following actually exists online. There are small pockets of the internet that are basically a peak into The Wired. One of my favorites is a neocities website called fauux.com, its basically a blog for some Norwegian guy who goes by fauux but its presented and executed in such unique way that perfectly fits into the Lain aesthetic. There are so many hidden aspects with increasingly difficult layers to access that his whole website acts as The Wired would. I've spent hours trying to uncover every secret he hid, and it was a fascinating way to connect to the show that I've never seen before. I actually got in contact with the guy when I asked if I could use his art to promote my radio show and he was nice enough to let me use it, free of charge. He updates it every once in a while and its fun to go back and see whats new. Although since hes gotten more popular its kinda ruined the mystery behind it, and its less Wired-esque in a way, but its still fun. Check it out here.

Every Frame A Painting

Perhaps the most well produced and eloquently executed critique videos are those of Every Frame A Painting. He is a film editor and on his Youtube channel he takes his years of experience, and waters it down to an easy to understand, well polished work. In this video he covers the awesome cuts of the late Satoshi Kon. Its a joy to watch Every Frame A Painting and this is the most relevant one to this blog so enjoy.

Anime Everyday

It's a little late for a horror post considering that Halloween has passed us by and we are now in full Christmas mode, but this is still a good reflection on the topic of horror in anime. Anime Everyday is one of the most consistent, quality posters I know of and there's nothing I can say here that he doesn't cover in the video.  He can be a bit elitist on his stance, but that shouldn't be a problem for you considering you're reading this blog. 

Once again I like to point out that this blog is never trying to make you feel bad for liking what you like, taste is subjective, but I think it's fun to try and apply objective criteria, to a subjective medium. I want to see what happens when you set a standard to anime, and I believe it can be done to some degree, considering that there are some basics to judging a medium, for instance we all know when we're watching smut, so there is a starting point for evaluation. At the end of the day though, if you enjoy it, then that's all that matters and don't let me, or anyone tell you it's bad. This blog is just my opinion, its what I personally like, and I'm just putting froth arguments for why I like what I like, and maybe you agree, and maybe you don't, I just hope you find these posts insightful and entertaining to some degree.

Garbage

Here is a short little blurb about the title of this blog, I say that anime is garbage, and that's true for the most part, but let's talk about why. There are two main reasons, both of them are covered in the very insightful video by Gigguk which I posted above.

1. The first reason is the thesis of this video which is that it is incredibly difficult to get all of the stars to align for the production of an anime to even be considered, let alone a quality one. Studios and investors have a larger risk of losing money when producing a show that strays from the standard, which is the case for most good anime.

2. The other reason is a little more subtle, which is that anime fans are garbage eaters and are the main reason for anime being bad. Japan doesn't pump out bad anime because they think it's funny, they do it because it turns a profit. The fans eat that garbage up and in today's age where at least here in North America, buying anime or manga is considered a joke, production studios have to make content that appeals to the least common denominator so they can get dumb otaku to buy figures or other stupid merchandise because lord knows they won't buy the actual anime. They rely on tropes and formulaic stories because if they don't then they risk going out of business.

We are the problem, if you don't support the anime you like by actually spending money on it, then you are contributing to the trend of bad anime. If you want things to change, go out and spend money on a Crunchyroll subscription or something similar, and watch the shows that are good. Crunchyroll collects metrics on these things, and those are relayed back to anime studios. If you spend money and only watch good experimental stuff, then you will see more of that being produced. Cash is king in anime. In other words go out and buy Nichijou on Blu-Ray so we can finally get a season two, that way I can die a happy man.

Nichijou

Almost All of the Characters for Nichijou, Too Much Hype for the Blu-Ray's. 

Nichijou is one of my favorite anime series of all time. I like it so much that I've bought all the manga that has been released thus far in America. I like it so much I've purposefully not finished the show because I don't want to live in a world where there isn't more Nichijou to watch, which is why I was ecstatic when I heard the news that Funimation was finally going to release it here in America, on blu-ray no less. The show is an absurdest comedy about the every day lives of three school girls, although the show has a massive cast including a deer wrestling principle, a talking cat, and an 8 year old mad scientist. It runs for 26 episodes and each episode is a series of short clips. The jokes are fantastic and animated in an absurdly high quality for the content that's being delivered which only adds to the hilarity. Its this obscenely high production quality that makes this blu-ray release exciting, Being able to watch Nichijou in glorious 1080p will be a delight.

This joke is made 1000x better by the high production quality

Often times North American releases includes and English dub for the characters voices, and so anime fans have the dilemma, should they watch the Japanese dub with English subtitles, or the English dub. This is commonly referred to, the subs or dubs argument and it is hotly debated in the anime community. This arises because a lot of the time the companies, like Funimation, that acquire the rights to the English dub more times than not do a horrible job. Characters voices will sometimes not match the character, be annoying, or sometimes they're just bad. But that isn't the case all the time, so people argue about what is better. I've heard people say that if an anime is good then it will have a good dub, or that they only watch subs because that's the way the show was meant to be watched. I disagree with both, I go on a case by case basis, but usually I pick the subs, just because they're usually just higher quality. The voice actors work with the director personally while often times the English dub is cast and directed without input from the director of the series. Of course there are some dubs that are better than subs, like Cowboy Bebop or Hellsing, and there are plenty of subs that are better than dubs, like Neon Genesis Evangelion or Serial Experiments Lain. And there are some where they're all bad, in which case you probably just shouldn't watch it, or just read the manga.

mfw people argue about subs or dubs

Nichijou luckily does not have this problem because the original voice acting is amazing, all of the voice actors are incredibly skilled at their craft and their voices suit their characters perfectly.I couldn't imagine hearing their voices any other way and now luckily I won't have to worry about that because on this very rare occasion, Funimation is releasing Nichijou in North America without and English dub. I can't remember the last time that ever happened, but I'm sure glad my viewing experience won't be tainted by shoddy voice acting. It's being released on February 7th, and you can bet I'll be counting down the days. Read more about it here!