Shax gains some Hit Points, but loses Intelligence Points
It's 12:45 PM on May 27, 2007. Today's my birthday, and I'm housesitting at my parents' house, vector-tracing a picture of a pre-teen girl hugging cats in her underwear. HAPPY 31ST, SHAX
Seriously, though, this is more or less how I planned to spend the long weekend, which just happened to have my birthday in the middle of it. Needed a few days away from the apartment, and more specifically, the roommate. He hasn't done anything bone-headed lately or anything; he's just... well, getting on my nerves a little. It's not his fault or anything; there's just times when I feel like turning hermit for a bit, and that's when he chooses to cook and eat stinky food, watch Univision at very high volumes, and set his cell to Speakerphone and jabber away with everyone he knows for a few hours.
So when the chance to hang out in a giant house in the middle of nowhere for three days presented itself, I jumped all OVER it. Brought the computer along for the ride since, as of Friday, I had two whole gigabytes left on my 160GB media drive and really needed to do something about that. A whole Saturday and nearly 30 DVD-Rs later, we're back to around 145GB free space- a positively VAST expanse by comparison!
Hopefully Photoshop will thank me for it- in addition to being where I shove all my movies, music and pics, the E: drive is also supposed to be my primary Scratch Disk.
Anyway! Been damn near a month since the last entry, and even though May's definitely been a wake up-work-come home-shower-eat-sleep kind of month, stuff's been going on. Not a whole lot, mind, but enough to warrant an entry, I suppose!
On the subject of Genshiken: I've mentioned it in passing before, but recently, I've been on a pretty serious idealized otaku kick. It all started at the beginning of May with a re-watch of the series. Shortly after, I picked up the first couple volumes of the manga on a comic-buying binge. Before I knew it, it's three weeks later, I own all eight currently-released volumes of Del Rey Manga's translation, I've downloaded fansubs of Genshiken OAVs 1 and 2 ("Episodes 13 and 14") and I'm checking the group's webpage a couple times a week to check on the progress of the THIRD OAV. Haven't gotten this enthused about an anime since Azumanga Daioh a few years ago!
At some point around the sixth volume of the manga, it shifts focus from a bunch of guys interested in pervy fanart of games and anime (i.e., the part of anime fandom I enjoy most) to a bunch of girls interested in cosplay and yaoi manga (i.e., the part of anime fandom I go out of my way to avoid), so you'd THINK I'd have dropped it quick, fast and in a HURRY. I mean, for Chrissake- most of the shift in focus comes about with the introduction of Ogiue, who on TOP of everything else is a total ANGSTARD. Yaoi, Angst and Madarame graduating- any rational man could consider those Strikes 1, 2 and 3, respectively.
YET I CAN'T SEEM TO GET ENOUGH. This is NOT MAKE SENSE! Well, it makes a little sense- Ogiue plays so well off the other characters. Particularly Ohno! She and Ohno establish a rivaly right away. Ohno's the most adorable little thing this side of SD-town, and that's only enhanced by her charming attempts to be catty and spiteful. Ogiue gets better a couple volumes in, anyway, and has probably the best backstory ever written for an Angsty Character, so THAT'S forgivable, too.
Though in all honesty, I was won over at the beginning of Volume...6, I think, when she secret cosplays as Renko-sama (cf. that embarassing pic I'm currently vectoring). Don't know whether it's her mad genius character, her hyperactive line delivery, her apparent love of cats or just Madarame's lolicrush on her rubbing off on me, but Kamishakujii is pretty much my favorite KujiUn character. Speaking of Kujibiki Unbalance....
Can a guy be a diehard fan of an anime series that, technically, doesn't exist?
Now, to be totally fair,it DOES kinda exist in a very loose sense. The show's basically about Chihiro, a shy little fellow who's been accepted to a very prestigious high school where, in addition to the usual curriculum, all students are engaged in a schoolwide tournament to determine the following year's Student Council. The tournament's made up of several competitions of varied theme- cooking competitions, mock army battles, swim meets, webpage design (whoever gets the most hits in a set time frame wins)- even a full-scale dungeon-crawling LARP session through a dungeon filled with various console RPG archetypes. Two teams compete, with the winning team moving on to the next round. Chihiro's teammates are Izumi Tachibana (a gambling prodigy), Komaki Asagiri (a smart, kinda mean girl who takes care of her younger siblings after the death (?) of their parents) and Tokino Akiyama (a nice, kinda spacy girl who likes mushrooms maybe a little too much).
The series was created to give the Genshiken guys an anime and manga to obsess over that wouldn't require obtaining all kinds of rights and licenses to avoid lawsuit. Bits and pieces of it are shown during the anime- usually as the guys are watching it themselves. Still, KujiUn DOES have three real episodes:
Episode 1: the first episode, of course. Introduces the main characters and establishes the setting and theme.
Episode 21: the Clip Show. Our heroes reminisce on the many competitions they've engaged in so far over soba. At the end of the episode, a mysterious villain is introduced.
Episode 25: the penultimate episode. Can Team Akiyama find the strength to carry on to the next round? Or, for that matter, to speak to each other again?
The three episodes were released as an OAV alongside the Genshiken DVD releases, and are included in the US box set release. Torrents have pretty much dried up, though they can be had with a little diligent searching. The series seems to have been removed from YouTube :(.
The three OAVs are full of all kinds of anime cliches and mainstays that, traditionally, make a show POISON to a Shax- angst, harems, an endless series of competitions, all that stuff. It's also funny as all hell. Episode 21's more or less a non-stop lollercoaster. The Karaoke Competition scene kills me every time I watch it. It's that final "AAH AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" that does it. I've read rumors that one of the Hellsing VAs (Alucard's?) provides Tokino's singing voice; whether that's true or not, whoever did it got it in one.
I've been sorely tempted to do some extensive fanart of the series. In particular, I've been in love with the idea of having prints for sale at a convention and playing the thing off as a legitimate series- y'know, go on about how the President was soooooo much better in the manga, and how I really like the Izumi-Kasumi pairing (KAZUMI, if you will), all that stuff. And y'know, the between-chapter extras in the manga give PLENTY of information with which to do that! I'm amazed at how in-depth Kio Shimoku got with his series-within-a-series; there are legitimate anime that don't have characters nearly as developed as Kujibiki Unbalance does.
'Course, there's two things working against that- the print-buyer's natural urge to skip right over that which is unfamiliar to them (and really, who thinks this much about Kujibiki Unbalance besides me?), and the fact that those dicks have actually gone and made a legitimate Kujibiki Unbalance TV series. Premiered last fall in Japan! Has the same general storyline and many of the same characters, though apparently almost all of them are radically different from their OAV counterparts. I haven't checked it out yet, though that'll probably change now that I've learned that Renko's a main character now. And a genius inventor besides! A flat-chested dominatrix who's handy with a wrench... it's like Tron Bonne all over again :D.
Hey, I touched on conventions in the last topic- let's discuss THAT at great length now!
Otakon 2007! It's coming up in a little under two months! And after a lot of careful consideration and deliberation, I've decided to give it a pass again this year.
Last year, I took exception to some proposed changes to Artist Alley's rules and regulations and decided not to go in protest. I've since been told that, for all the huff and bluster Rachel Ann raised about copyrights, Artist Alley was pretty much Business As Usual, so turns out I needn't have worried. This year, though, the timing and finances aren't working out; Kou's coming to visit a couple weeks earlier, which will probably eat up all my available con-going time and cash, but more to the point, I don't really have anything new to sell thanks to being generally a lazy, unmotivated sack o' crap. Moreover, what little viable new stuff I DO have generally falls into my standard categories: Weird Shit, and Weird Shit Happening To Princess Peach And/Or Princess Daisy. Anime North 2006 taught me a VALUABLE LESSON about having too narrow a focus in one's portfolio, and I've vowed to have a much wider selection of material available for the next con I sell stuff at. Which, at this point, looks to be Otakon 2008!
Yes, I'm already in the planning stages for a convention that's still well over a year away. However! Choosing Otakon 2008 to fixate upon has also helped me to start overcoming some serious artistic hang-ups I've had lately. Fact is, I haven't drawn anything new in almost two months, and even worse, I haven't FELT like drawing anything new in that time. I've gone on and on at great length about The Backlog- a list of projects I've allegedly obligated myself to that threatens to crush me under its stupendous weight. I actually wrote out a comprehensive list of all these projects to give me some kind of idea as to how big it was. Turns out there were only 12 or so pics on it, but... well, I made the list around this time last year, and since then, I managed to cross off all of three projects on it. Every pic I'd do for myself (or for someone who wasn't on the backlog) just served to depress me further when I realized it wasn't getting me anywhere on that damnable list.
So I did something I should've done YEARS ago: I said "fuck it" to the list. Crossed off almost all the art trades, leaving one for which I've already received my part. I don't typically accept payment for commissions until I've got a pencil sketch to show the customer, so though there were something like eight commissions on the list, I hadn't been paid for any of them. Crossed off all the commissions I haven't heard anything on for more than three or four months, leaving me with two. Combined with the picture I'm working on now and another pic for mads, that brings my NEW backlog to five pictures- a MUCH more manageable number. I can actually CONCEIVE of having five pictures done in less than a year's time. After that, it'll be a good long while before I take commissions again- if EVER. Gotta get a lot better concerning my artist work ethic before I start obligating myself to a lot of new projects.
After those pics are done, it's straight-up personal fanart time- the majority of which isn't even prurient in nature. Can I survive the sudden transition!? STAY TUNED AND FIND OUT
All that said, I should probably get back to work. Y'all enjoy your Memorial Day!
Seriously, though, this is more or less how I planned to spend the long weekend, which just happened to have my birthday in the middle of it. Needed a few days away from the apartment, and more specifically, the roommate. He hasn't done anything bone-headed lately or anything; he's just... well, getting on my nerves a little. It's not his fault or anything; there's just times when I feel like turning hermit for a bit, and that's when he chooses to cook and eat stinky food, watch Univision at very high volumes, and set his cell to Speakerphone and jabber away with everyone he knows for a few hours.
So when the chance to hang out in a giant house in the middle of nowhere for three days presented itself, I jumped all OVER it. Brought the computer along for the ride since, as of Friday, I had two whole gigabytes left on my 160GB media drive and really needed to do something about that. A whole Saturday and nearly 30 DVD-Rs later, we're back to around 145GB free space- a positively VAST expanse by comparison!
Hopefully Photoshop will thank me for it- in addition to being where I shove all my movies, music and pics, the E: drive is also supposed to be my primary Scratch Disk.
Anyway! Been damn near a month since the last entry, and even though May's definitely been a wake up-work-come home-shower-eat-sleep kind of month, stuff's been going on. Not a whole lot, mind, but enough to warrant an entry, I suppose!
On the subject of Genshiken: I've mentioned it in passing before, but recently, I've been on a pretty serious idealized otaku kick. It all started at the beginning of May with a re-watch of the series. Shortly after, I picked up the first couple volumes of the manga on a comic-buying binge. Before I knew it, it's three weeks later, I own all eight currently-released volumes of Del Rey Manga's translation, I've downloaded fansubs of Genshiken OAVs 1 and 2 ("Episodes 13 and 14") and I'm checking the group's webpage a couple times a week to check on the progress of the THIRD OAV. Haven't gotten this enthused about an anime since Azumanga Daioh a few years ago!
At some point around the sixth volume of the manga, it shifts focus from a bunch of guys interested in pervy fanart of games and anime (i.e., the part of anime fandom I enjoy most) to a bunch of girls interested in cosplay and yaoi manga (i.e., the part of anime fandom I go out of my way to avoid), so you'd THINK I'd have dropped it quick, fast and in a HURRY. I mean, for Chrissake- most of the shift in focus comes about with the introduction of Ogiue, who on TOP of everything else is a total ANGSTARD. Yaoi, Angst and Madarame graduating- any rational man could consider those Strikes 1, 2 and 3, respectively.
YET I CAN'T SEEM TO GET ENOUGH. This is NOT MAKE SENSE! Well, it makes a little sense- Ogiue plays so well off the other characters. Particularly Ohno! She and Ohno establish a rivaly right away. Ohno's the most adorable little thing this side of SD-town, and that's only enhanced by her charming attempts to be catty and spiteful. Ogiue gets better a couple volumes in, anyway, and has probably the best backstory ever written for an Angsty Character, so THAT'S forgivable, too.
Though in all honesty, I was won over at the beginning of Volume...6, I think, when she secret cosplays as Renko-sama (cf. that embarassing pic I'm currently vectoring). Don't know whether it's her mad genius character, her hyperactive line delivery, her apparent love of cats or just Madarame's lolicrush on her rubbing off on me, but Kamishakujii is pretty much my favorite KujiUn character. Speaking of Kujibiki Unbalance....
Can a guy be a diehard fan of an anime series that, technically, doesn't exist?
Now, to be totally fair,it DOES kinda exist in a very loose sense. The show's basically about Chihiro, a shy little fellow who's been accepted to a very prestigious high school where, in addition to the usual curriculum, all students are engaged in a schoolwide tournament to determine the following year's Student Council. The tournament's made up of several competitions of varied theme- cooking competitions, mock army battles, swim meets, webpage design (whoever gets the most hits in a set time frame wins)- even a full-scale dungeon-crawling LARP session through a dungeon filled with various console RPG archetypes. Two teams compete, with the winning team moving on to the next round. Chihiro's teammates are Izumi Tachibana (a gambling prodigy), Komaki Asagiri (a smart, kinda mean girl who takes care of her younger siblings after the death (?) of their parents) and Tokino Akiyama (a nice, kinda spacy girl who likes mushrooms maybe a little too much).
The series was created to give the Genshiken guys an anime and manga to obsess over that wouldn't require obtaining all kinds of rights and licenses to avoid lawsuit. Bits and pieces of it are shown during the anime- usually as the guys are watching it themselves. Still, KujiUn DOES have three real episodes:
Episode 1: the first episode, of course. Introduces the main characters and establishes the setting and theme.
Episode 21: the Clip Show. Our heroes reminisce on the many competitions they've engaged in so far over soba. At the end of the episode, a mysterious villain is introduced.
Episode 25: the penultimate episode. Can Team Akiyama find the strength to carry on to the next round? Or, for that matter, to speak to each other again?
The three episodes were released as an OAV alongside the Genshiken DVD releases, and are included in the US box set release. Torrents have pretty much dried up, though they can be had with a little diligent searching. The series seems to have been removed from YouTube :(.
The three OAVs are full of all kinds of anime cliches and mainstays that, traditionally, make a show POISON to a Shax- angst, harems, an endless series of competitions, all that stuff. It's also funny as all hell. Episode 21's more or less a non-stop lollercoaster. The Karaoke Competition scene kills me every time I watch it. It's that final "AAH AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" that does it. I've read rumors that one of the Hellsing VAs (Alucard's?) provides Tokino's singing voice; whether that's true or not, whoever did it got it in one.
I've been sorely tempted to do some extensive fanart of the series. In particular, I've been in love with the idea of having prints for sale at a convention and playing the thing off as a legitimate series- y'know, go on about how the President was soooooo much better in the manga, and how I really like the Izumi-Kasumi pairing (KAZUMI, if you will), all that stuff. And y'know, the between-chapter extras in the manga give PLENTY of information with which to do that! I'm amazed at how in-depth Kio Shimoku got with his series-within-a-series; there are legitimate anime that don't have characters nearly as developed as Kujibiki Unbalance does.
'Course, there's two things working against that- the print-buyer's natural urge to skip right over that which is unfamiliar to them (and really, who thinks this much about Kujibiki Unbalance besides me?), and the fact that those dicks have actually gone and made a legitimate Kujibiki Unbalance TV series. Premiered last fall in Japan! Has the same general storyline and many of the same characters, though apparently almost all of them are radically different from their OAV counterparts. I haven't checked it out yet, though that'll probably change now that I've learned that Renko's a main character now. And a genius inventor besides! A flat-chested dominatrix who's handy with a wrench... it's like Tron Bonne all over again :D.
Hey, I touched on conventions in the last topic- let's discuss THAT at great length now!
Otakon 2007! It's coming up in a little under two months! And after a lot of careful consideration and deliberation, I've decided to give it a pass again this year.
Last year, I took exception to some proposed changes to Artist Alley's rules and regulations and decided not to go in protest. I've since been told that, for all the huff and bluster Rachel Ann raised about copyrights, Artist Alley was pretty much Business As Usual, so turns out I needn't have worried. This year, though, the timing and finances aren't working out; Kou's coming to visit a couple weeks earlier, which will probably eat up all my available con-going time and cash, but more to the point, I don't really have anything new to sell thanks to being generally a lazy, unmotivated sack o' crap. Moreover, what little viable new stuff I DO have generally falls into my standard categories: Weird Shit, and Weird Shit Happening To Princess Peach And/Or Princess Daisy. Anime North 2006 taught me a VALUABLE LESSON about having too narrow a focus in one's portfolio, and I've vowed to have a much wider selection of material available for the next con I sell stuff at. Which, at this point, looks to be Otakon 2008!
Yes, I'm already in the planning stages for a convention that's still well over a year away. However! Choosing Otakon 2008 to fixate upon has also helped me to start overcoming some serious artistic hang-ups I've had lately. Fact is, I haven't drawn anything new in almost two months, and even worse, I haven't FELT like drawing anything new in that time. I've gone on and on at great length about The Backlog- a list of projects I've allegedly obligated myself to that threatens to crush me under its stupendous weight. I actually wrote out a comprehensive list of all these projects to give me some kind of idea as to how big it was. Turns out there were only 12 or so pics on it, but... well, I made the list around this time last year, and since then, I managed to cross off all of three projects on it. Every pic I'd do for myself (or for someone who wasn't on the backlog) just served to depress me further when I realized it wasn't getting me anywhere on that damnable list.
So I did something I should've done YEARS ago: I said "fuck it" to the list. Crossed off almost all the art trades, leaving one for which I've already received my part. I don't typically accept payment for commissions until I've got a pencil sketch to show the customer, so though there were something like eight commissions on the list, I hadn't been paid for any of them. Crossed off all the commissions I haven't heard anything on for more than three or four months, leaving me with two. Combined with the picture I'm working on now and another pic for mads, that brings my NEW backlog to five pictures- a MUCH more manageable number. I can actually CONCEIVE of having five pictures done in less than a year's time. After that, it'll be a good long while before I take commissions again- if EVER. Gotta get a lot better concerning my artist work ethic before I start obligating myself to a lot of new projects.
After those pics are done, it's straight-up personal fanart time- the majority of which isn't even prurient in nature. Can I survive the sudden transition!? STAY TUNED AND FIND OUT
All that said, I should probably get back to work. Y'all enjoy your Memorial Day!