Montreal Blues

I was sick all of Saturday with a flu-like headache that made my head feel like it was going to explode. On Sunday, I thought I was better, although I still had lingering cold-like sniffles. It got much worse on Monday when I arrived in Montreal, because my voice started to give way to a diseased rasp. I did attend Lil V's convocation, followed by Ivo's birthday supper at Mon Nan, followed by an evening gaterhing at Davy's apartment. By then I was already slipping downhill on the voiceability of my voice box. I wanted to stay indoors for the most part of this trip, but now I think it is too late. :(

So today (and for the next few days), I am refraining from talking at all, which sucks because I spent so much time in Quebec not having anyone to talk to anyway. Ivo, Lil V and I are planning to watch the Inu Yasha movie 4 here though (although all I could manage to scrape up wasd the dub) so less talking needed. I heavily dislike being sick. :(

Above all, I blame the elementary school kids with all those germs and things (pokemon cards) they bring to school to infect everyone else. >:(

On a related note, I am sorry to have to miss my friend's (brem's wife) birthday tomorrow and having (the ability) to call and wish her such greetings.

Otakuthon 2006

Held at Concordia last Saturday and Sunday, this is the first that time the Concordia anime club has attempted to host this convention. Unfortunately, they were very short-handed and stretched to wacky limits, as I don't think they ever expected so many people attending. From what I gathered of forum information, there was about 600 people pre-registered, and most likely a good 1.5 to 2 thousand people attending.

Jorgh and I attended Saturday early afternoon only, as I had to get back to Quebec Sunday. We also got to meet up with Julie and meet her boyfriend Sean. We spent most of the time standing in line, since the chaotic mess of registration prevented anyone from understanding what the crap was going on. Considering my experience from Anime North 2003 volunteering at registration, I forgave the poor organizers for their short tempers, especially that Tsunade cosplayer who was screaming at the attendees from behind the pre-registration table.

Jorgh and I sampled a bit of the sights from the (scant) merchants and artist alley, while suffocating from the lack of air and smells of the unwashed kids dressed in greasy handmade costumes. I appreciated the lack of completely inappropriate costumes among the attendees (except for one particular case that will haunt Jorghnassen for the rest of eternity).

We watched part of an anime called Ginban Kaleidoscope, which featured an olympic athlete girl who is haunted by the ghost of a Canadian boy named Peet Pumps (no, that's not a typo). I have no clue.

We then attended two panels; the first one was given by the editor of Anime News Network, Chris, who gave a combined talk about the website and the state of the anime industry, since no one from the anime industry went to the convention. The second panel was given by Chris and Claude, the editor of the anime magazine, Protoculture Addicts. In both panels, they gave us incentives to ask well-formulated questions to keep the talk moving. The incentives happened to be anime DVDs. (Unfortunately we only found out after viewing them that they weren't particularly good DVDs.)

Jorgh and I, along with the 5 other people in the room, asked sufficient questions to forward the panel interestingly enough for the entire two hours. In fact, we enjoyed asking questions to Chris, especially regarding the anime industry in North America, seeing that someone who was knowledgeable enough to answer the nagging thoughts in our mind. For example, what of fansubs? How does it affect the sales of anime? Which companies in NA makes reasonably good decisions regarding distribution and production? What happened between 2000 and 2006 that screwed up distribution of anime across this continent? (I'm not going to answer these questions here.)

What both Jorghnassen and I found completely inconsiderate and immature was that waiting outside of the panels were kids who were impatiently waiting for the next panel. They were being loud and obnoxious, as only young people can get, and didn't realize that their stupid comments about how boring the panels sounded could be heard by everyone inside the room. Way to make the panelists feel good, jerks. If I had had presence of mind, I would have chewed their heads off made them apologize to Chris and Claude.

In fact, those kids were waiting for the totally awesome and intellectually stimulating panel called "Les anime que vous aimez détester." </sarcasm> The panel apparently consisted of random debates between people intent on pissing everyone else off in the room, and squealing fangirls.

Afterwards, we left the place feeling sufficiently creeped out from too many people, but satisfied with the two DVDs we gained from attending. Until we watched them, that is. Why HOW did they make 26 episodes of that show?!

No, we didn't see Irulanne.

Aishiteruze Baby

You'll have to forgive me for thinking the worse for japanese anime and manga culture. I have been exposed to much too much of the stuff. Anyway, the worst that I have seen involves something so utterly disgusting but apparently popular enough to be called "lolicon" (no, there's much, much worse but I won't say it). The first part of that word stems from "lolita" so you get the idea. When I first watched the first several minutes of Aishiteruze Baby, I had a terrible, terrible feeling it was going to be just that.

Fortunately I was quite wrong. But knowing that there exists something called the internet, there is probably going to be fan-made crap that will twist the entire thing into such trash.

I'll stop thinking so terribly about this show and talk about how cute it is.

Hooray! It's a schoolkid story that's neither boring nor ridiculous! A 15 17 year old boy is put in guardianship of his 5 year old cousin when her mother disappears. It's all a bit disturbing at first because the boy's got some weird relationships with his female friends at school, but it's all innocent. An innocent love at first sight. :)

The story develops with realistic issues that a 5 year old could experience. None of that candy-coated "my friends have better toys than me" crap. More like issues of abandonment, solitude, jealousy, child abuse... on the other hand, the show deals with them at a decent pace and without making you feel like throttling certain characters despite some weighty topics.

Jorgh probably won't like the series too much because it doesn't have any hand-to-hand combat, perpetual powering up, absurd comedy, or boobs. OK, it has boobs. But not naked boobs.

ADD.: So the manga series ends differently, and it's much, much more heart-tugging than the anime ending, although things seemed more rushed.

Sambomaster!

I don't remember where I last talked about Sambomaster or if I ever mentioned it at some point (which would be quite odd if I didn't). I probably did mention Naruto many times. The opening for Naruto that features Sambomaster's song is called Seishun Kyosokyouku, which got me hooked right away. If you watch the video, try imagining the face of the singer.

Now, here's the music video with the song in its entirety.

I still love this song. Rock on, japanese care bear!

---

Lots of anime use songs from j-rock and j-pop bands for openings and endings. It's actually quite common for them to change the songs every season, and often in the middle of seasons. (Perhaps to boost the ratings, since it involves making new animations for the songs as well.) This applies to Inu Yasha, Naruto, Bleach, and other popular action series.

On the other hand, (short-running) romance anime use voice actors from the shows to sing their theme songs, if they're talented enough. So the anime in question will often scramble for leading voice actors that are proven to sing well and have great talent. For example, Love Hina and Chobits.

Anyway, the point is that there's a lot of money and time spent on making these openings and endings original, catchy and entertaining. So why would an american company license an anime and completely throw out the original opening to vomit up an abomination of a "song" like this opening for dubbed Naruto? (Don't tell me it's because they don't want to change the songs for an english audience, because they've pretty much left Inu Yasha as is due to the possibility of insane old geezer otaku backlash.)

Ok, I admit there have been weird things in the original as well. But really, generic rock riffs do not make a satisfactory substitution to this. (Or FURRIES and UNDERAGE GIRLS IN SWIMSUITS.)

Otakuthon

Following the failed hybrid-con from a few years ago in Montreal that I talked about more recently with that comic last month or something, the newest and FREE anime convention is being held in Concordia's Hall building on June 10 and 11. It's called Otakuthon and is hosted by Concordia's own otaku group, whatever they're called. Some points:

• Concordia has a larger otaku following because McGill sucks


• Most people should not go to these things to not spend any money, because leaving empty-handed from these things makes one feel like several hours of your life has been wasted mingling with weirdos in furry costumes.


• I don't expect things to be as busy and nuts as the Anime North back in 2003, but it is inevitable that you will see at least one disturbing thing. A person in a furry costume, for instance. Humping random uncostumed people. And that random person enjoying it.


• Most of these kinds of events are pay-to-register, so it's interesting that they aren't asking for money.


• One of their special guests is a local internet personality from Laval who will be singing japanese pop songs. I'm imagining that it's akin to the japanese pop idol singing quebecois rock music, but I haven't the foggiest...

They are also looking for volunteers, so if you know japanese I think they might appreciate a translator... (for whom, I don't have a clue...)

Conan the Adventurer

Hell, yeah! Finally, someone has information on this series:
CONAN THE ADVENTURER

... And yes, torrents are up. (Where? I'll let you figure that out for yourselves.)

EDIT: The problem I had a few years ago while looking for information about this particular series was that there was loads of information on the Conan movies, comics, live action series, even that dreaded cartoon sequel to the actual thing I was looking for. The torrents are only now available because they've finally come out on DVD... in the UK.

Manga List

I break my one post a day habit sometimes. Here's a list of manga that I have read or am reading now.

• Naruto - spikey-blond-haired little brat in a ninja village
• Hunter X Hunter - spikey-dark-haired boy who wants to become a hunter to find his father
• Great Teacher Onizuka - spikey-blond-haired former extra-tough gang member who becomes a teacher
• Fruit Basket - gentle girl who gets involved with an unusal family
• 3X3 Eyes - girl runs into guy, guy gets killed by girl's pet, girl eats guy's soul, guy has to protect girl for the rest of their existence, guy falls for girl... classic love story
• Inu Yasha - doggy boy with cute ears
• Cardcaptors Sakura - Sakura captures magical cards, while Syaoran pines for both Sakura and another boy... it gets kinda shounen-ai too
  
• Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE (which is written just as you see it here) - Sakura and Syaoran from Cardcaptors Sakura, back in completely different and convoluted adventures
• Yakitate! Japan - about breadmaking and NO it's not boring.
• Gokusen - a female new teacher who happens to be the granddaughter of a Yakuza leader
• Angel Sanctuary- a brother and a sister... uh... and some weird stuff about angels and demons.
• Kimagure Orange Road - a family with odd powers try to maintain a normal life... with powers...
• Penguin Brothers - spunky girl out to resolve a school gang war
• Haru yo Koi - find out for yourself ;)

I read the end of Chobits, and I read one chapter each of One Piece, Bleach, and Full Metal Alchemist, but they don't strike me with too much interest. Besides, I have all these other manga I have to catch up with. ;)