I seem to be the only one who likes Aki Sora.

I mean, sure the story went from sappy drama about forbidden love to full-blown orgies in the course of six chapters; and trust me, I was angry at how shitty the story became. Then I noticed a bulge in my pants and realized that not all anime and manga need to be good to be enjoyable. Of course, some crappy anime receive more popularity than it deserves, and that really grinds my gears, but that’s my disappointment with anime fans in general and doesn’t lie strictly with the anime.

I seem to have gone off topic. Oh yes, I masturbated to Aki Sora out of pure frustration and came to enjoy the series for its aesthetics, and how it indulges my more primal urges. After all, isn’t incest really just about getting your rocks off in Japan? My only complaint with the Aki Sora anime was that it sucked, and not in the good way. It seemed to focus too much on the boring slice-of-life bits rather than the sticky wet sex that usually accompanies Itosugi Masahiro’s artworks. I remember stroking my member to one particular chapter where Nami rapes Sora (No, I did not mix up the names) and as I climaxed I could actually feel the sorrow and regret emanating from the tears on Nami’s cum-soaked face. The sequence of events leading up to that heart-wrenching scene was a path convoluted with extraneous amounts of sex and semen, but it worked.

The ends justify the means, and since Aki Sora managed to figure out a way to pair-up the two I absolutely needed to join hips, and in a manner that wasn’t completely a waste of time, I have to give Aki Sora props. I don’t give a lot of crappy manga props, but Aki Sora deserves it. At the heart of the matter, Aki Sora is delivering fap material to young teenage boys across the globe with a story that doesn’t involve magical pixie dust that make dicks taste like candy. Very few titles can pull that off in a tasteful manner. So without further ado, I’d like to applaud Itosugi Masahiro on his most excellent Aki Sora.

Japanese Lesson of the day: kinshin soukan (????) – incest

If you’re not doing it, then you’re a horrible father.

FOX news commenter Lou Dobbs declared two recent movies The Secret World of Arrietty and The Lorax as having a liberal agenda to create “occu-toddlers.” The Lorax is a CG Dr. Seuss movie about taking from the Earth without giving back and The Secret World of Arrietty a Hayao Miyazaki anime based on the novel The Borrowers where really small people live with humans and take what they need to survive. Basically that they’re promoting the anti-industrial views and the protection of the environment from industrialization. Lou Dobbs mentions how the Occupy Wall Street movement pits makers against takers, but I’m not too sure to which of whatever he’s referring to. Hayao Miyazaki movies are often licensed and have showings in theaters, but he is not quite apart of Hollywood. Guests also mention how movies such as these try to parent kids so that parents don’t have to, but that’s under the assumption that the parents aren’t parenting.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL-W1M0A05Q[/youtube]

This song which was originally composed with Hatsune Miku, based on a MAD (That’s Japanese for Anime Music Videos), which itself was based off a Shaman King Drama CD back around 2010, got noticed by Shueisha who made the original creator’s dream a reality by uniting his composition with Kyouyama Anna’s voice actress Megumi Hayashibara; and it is indeed very Japanese-ey. On NicoNico Douga, it garnered 1.5 million views. And now you can listen to it on youtube until the Internet gets divided amongst the Axis Powers. more…

Happy New Year’s and all that good junk.

So I just finished watching the Fate/Zero anime… the first half anyways. Two things come to mind:

1. Wow, the mages in Fate/Stay Night must have been pure crap, because there is a huge gap in power levels between the servants in Fate/Zero and Fate/Stay Night.
2. Wow, changing animation studios really powered up those servants.

I think Rider is my favorite character. I especially like how he put that stupid bitch Saber in her fucking place. Go back to the hole you crawled out of you false king! Speaking of Rider, I think the Banquet of the Three Kings was one of the coolest ideas this show has surprised me with since Irisviel laid Ilya.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZg30Dur5lM[/youtube]

So everyone that matters, that is to say, you the fans… has been tearing up for that sappy story in episode 20. Well, I have to agree the direction was remarkable, with the right buildup for Chihaya’s return to singing. But the script was lazy and boring.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0pNQfaEkM8?hd=1[/youtube]

If anything this scene from episode 21, where President Kuroi sabotages 765’s bgm was in my honest opinion the best scene to date; and let’s face it, nearly every scene in iDOLM@STER is amazing.

I can’t believe I just said that about an anime based off a milk-money fanservice franchise. Considering its roots, I guess we should be glad the characters are in color, but this series has already exceeded my expectations to a point where I can no longer remain silent.

Damn it Japan, you win again. Fuck you, idolmaster.

I’ve been thinking lately that anime doesn’t depict relatable human emotion as often as I’d like it to and began wondering why that is. There’s no shortage of drama in many anime story lines, after all. It shouldn’t be all that hard for a studio to punch you in the gut or make you cry out in joy since animation is a visual medium and we as human beings are quite used to seeing emotion playing out before our eyes in our daily lives. Why, then, do I feel like the depiction of emotion in anime is largely unsuccessful? In a word, I think the answer is melodrama.

Japanese entertainment on the whole seem rife with melodrama, to the point where I feel hard-pressed to name something that doesn’t include it. Part of this is certainly due to my limited exposure to Japanese media, to be sure, but I’m left to wonder why most of what I see from that nation suffers from excessive amounts of this literary technique.

I guess it’s worth talking about melodrama itself before continuing. For those not in the know, melodrama is essentially when a character begins acting almost irrationally emotional in order to appeal to your, the viewer’s, emotions as well. The plot can also be melodramatic, throwing characters into emotionally-charged situations without adequate explanation for the same purpose, to make you feel something. The inherent problem lies in the “make you” part, because the entire point is to force you to feel something that you might not feel naturally in a given situation. It can work, I’m told, but I’m not well-read or well-watched enough to summon up any recent examples.

This leads to a lot of scenes in anime where characters are thrust into a situation that doesn’t really match the tone or context of the rest of the show in order to drag an emotional response out of you. This can be as simple as an ordinarily upbeat and chipper show, perhaps even a comedy, suddenly being thrust into an emotionally charged situation at the very end. Thus, instead of laughing at some slapstick humor like you have been for a dozen episodes or more you’re suddenly exposed to a dark, sometimes downright disturbing situation and these fun-loving characters are changed into walking sacks of depression or anger. More insidiously, melodrama might be infused into the show from the get-go but not completely explored until the creators wanted you to suddenly be happy, sad, angry, or any other emotion. There’s a lot of ways that studios use melodrama, and in my experience it’s almost always bad for the show as a whole.

So, there’s the foundation of my point laid bare. In my next entry I’ll give some examples of shows that make excessive use of melodrama (which shouldn’t be difficult, as my pictures have no-doubt shown) as well as shows that either use it well or don’t need to use it at all with better results. I’ll end with a question for you: Do you also find the depiction of emotion in anime somewhat lacking? Do you also attribute it to melodrama or do you believe that something else is at work here?

I look forward to your thoughts.