So, this is my take on the current anime lineup.

Darker than Black is my pick for this season for possible inclusion into my dubious hall of fame. Crisp animation, fast action, and intriguing world concept. And no sign of any quality failure in the near future (or hopefully, at all).

Oh, and I love how the OP animation in general, and how it scrolls the title which is just as cool. “Now I’ve lost it, I know I can kill, the truth lies beyond the Gate.” Darker… than… BLACK!

Lucky Star is the other series I’m watching, one part because I’m a KyoAni fanboy, and another part because its nice, easy viewing with nice crisp animation. It’s actually casually funny, too, kind of in the everyday sort of way. There’s not a lot that’s amazing about it, but almost nothing that is wrong. While we’re judging anime by OP animations, its caffeine-charged OP also has the most awesome parody opening ever.

Since I’m on the topic, can I just say I don’t understand the KyoAni/Haruhi hate? Although I don’t quite understand why people want to put Haruhi on a pedestal and worship it, it ranked among the top-class of its contemporaries, without question. Unless you’re blind, or retarded, and then there’s no saving you.

On the other hand, it wasn’t absolutely amazing, and I can name a few series that were actually far better I-M-not-so-humble-O, yet I see almost nothing about those. This weird dichotomy of people that think Haruhi was the second advent of Evangelion in terms of influence (it’s not) and people that think Haruhi was trash (it’s not) confuses me.

People are stupid. I think it’s just because Haruhi was the first top-class animation that wasn’t something super-established like GITS – in terms of all aspects – to hit a widespread audience, and it really put KyoAni on the map for people that don’t pay attention to that stuff. Then they were like, “omg best anime evaar” despite the fact that there were many anime that are considered top-class; they just haven’t seen them or don’t want to. And because people are stupid, a bunch of people had to be unique or some shit and follow each others’ asses to the absolute other opinion, for no other real reason than to have that absolute other opinion and be morons about it as well.

Lucky Star isn’t as good as Haruhi, but it’s not a bad series; hell, I’ll say it’s better than most of the ones being released. Yet, people are bashing it both because they loved Haruhi and it’s not as good, and because they hated Haruhi and it’s not as good. What the hell?

Why Japan shouldn’t apologize. And won’t if Abe doesn’t want to. Probably, anyway.

So people are up in a hubub about those war brothels. AGAIN, if I may add. Yes, you idiots, this isn’t the first time this has come up. Or even the third. Amazing, you all are SO ON TOP OF THESE CIVIL RIGHTS THINGS.

1) It’s been 60 years. While all the things Japan did are really terrible, it took a drastic reformation from its wartime foundations. Its neighbors took the brunt of the brutalities of war, but it’d be ridiculous to say that war didn’t leave a bitter taste in Japanese mouths that remains to this day as well. (Talk to the majority of Japanese about their involvement in Iraq.) Not because they lost. We shouldn’t forget a massive Pacific War and related war crimes occurred, but how long do we want to continue reminding the entire world Japan was the belligerent defeated in it? Germany’s war guilt never surfaces in the same manner in the recent decades; I’m wondering if Asians just hate each other a lot more than Europeans. Ridiculous.

2) It’s already been done before. If demands must be levied against Japan, it should be on a more individual, non-global level, so that things already signed between the parties can be mitigated without bringing too much bureaucracy into the equation. And uninformed international opinion, good grief.

3) It’s bad for East Asian cohesion. As long as people continue riling each other up on a national level for events six decades ago, they continue driving wedges between the countries that are desperately failing, or so it seems sometimes, to repair relations. I think the survivors should tell about their experiences, but the goal shouldn’t forget-and-move-on, but remember-and-move-on. Which is why I didn’t like the textbook stuff, but that’s another story.

4) Japan can afford not to. What are people going to do? Is the rest of Asia going to impose sanctions? Declare war against a power that has U.S. military bases? Is the U.S. going to sever ties to one of the most important East Asian strategic assets? Whatever the decision, the motivation for it has to come from within Japan, and unless Abe receives crushing, hell-fire flaming backlash (which I doubt) he won’t have a particular reason to back down.

I think I had a fifth point, but this already captures most of what I thought.

Can you feel it now? Can you feel it now? (music post)

OLIVIA – Wish

I’m too tired to make a decent comment about it, other than it’s good.

呆れているでしょう？追いかけても来ない (music post)

Tommy february6 – ♥Lonely in Gorgeous♥

Catchy, quirky, and straightforward – just like the artist, for that matter - Lonely in Gorgeous may not be your type of song. It’s even one of those songs that I’m not sure I would have liked as much as I do, if I hadn’t seen the anime it was featured in (Paradise Kiss).

That said, it’s hard to forget the decidedly simple, almost retro sound of the song. And try as you might, after you hear the song a few times you can’t help but belt out the line “JEALOUSY kamo~!” as well as the rest of the random Engrish in the song. Try it; you might even like it.

Music post of the day when I should be doing work, YAY!

島みやえい子 – ひぐらしのなく頃に

Opening theme for the ill-fated Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, anime, voted “Most likely to be like 10,000x better if KyoAni did this instead,” which turned quite decent material into animated train wreck. Moving on.

Songs like these make Eiko Shimamiya my favorite I’ve artist. KOTOKO sings all the poppy techno, but many of Eiko’s songs have a rather unique tone, which imho manifests the most in this slightly creepy song.

Music post of the undeterminable period of time, YAY!

SUEMITSU & THE SUEMITH – Allegro Cantabile

For a period of time, my sister really liked Ben Folds Five. Once again, my utter lack of knowledge about musical genres fails me, but whatever Ben Folds Five is, SUEMITSU sounds a little like them. The band heavily emphasizes a piano part, which plays through most of the song and carries the vocals. However, other instrumentals, especially drums, also come into play. Overall, they achieve what I would call a nice, “crisp” sound (almost as if they were playing everything staccato), have catchy lyrics, do cool sounding things with voice synthesizers, and are overall fun to listen to. They even manage to pull off some non-Engrishy English. SO COOL!!

If I have any complaints about this group, it’s that Suemitsu’s singing style is utterly indecipherable for me, so I actually have no idea what the song is about other than vague disembodied phrases. But why complain when it just sounds SO COOL?

Dinner

Jasmine rice and Japanese-style curry with beef, potatoes, onions, and apples

Wing-it instructions:

Heat oil, add onions over medium-high heat until they turn slightly translucent. Reduce heat to medium and add beef. Cook till mostly done or onions are translucent, turning the mixture every few minutes.

Boil potatoes in one part water, one (or more) part some-kind-of-broth until potatoes are at desired softness. Add apples when potatoes are about half-done. Add beef and onion mixture, bring to soft boil. Add curry, cook for a few more minutes until it reaches desired consistency.

Make rice. Eat. Mmm, curry.

Yeah let’s just keep doing this

Healing Leaf – Slow Step

Although KOTOKO has the vocal ability to do just about everything I’ve covers, I still consider Eiko Shimamiya (島みやえい子) and Mami Kawada (川田まみ) the superior vocalists when they are in their element. Therefore, the combination of the two – named Healing Leaf for whatever Engrishy reason – cannot be bad. And it isn’t, resulting in my occasional joke that some of the catchiest Japanese music is from hentai games. (Which is why I had trouble finding an image to include with this song.)

Slow Step itself takes after its name, having a moderate tempo further pronounced by the carefully enunciated lyrics describing the necessary delicacy in approaching a new (presumably romantic) relationship. Heh, I could probably take a note or two from this song. And while their individual talent (especially Eiko’s) seems to fluctuate, the duo as Healing Leaf is perfect. The majority of the song is sung in major keys, but I like how when the song trails off for the final lines, it shifts to a minor key. Nice touch.

If you’ve never heard I’ve (I don’t know who I’m writing this for, da da da), I with my utter lack of musical genre knowledge describes it as something between pop and techno/dance, although the vocalists listed under I’ve have done everything within that spectrum. Healing Leaf being a little more toward the pop end (ironically, Eiko Shimamiya and Mami Kawada, when solo, don’t). In general, I think they all maintain a strong melody with vocals, which is the part that makes them sound J-poppish. The instrumentals are what give their songs the techno/dance flavor, if there is one. Not here!

Maybe I should make this a regular thing

Masayoshi Minoshima – Strawberry Crisis!!

Touhou remixes are iconic of the importance of Touhou to the doujin community and its strange ability to gather the creativity of artists spanning the entire spectrum of doujin work. Its myriad of characters, distinctive art-style and music, and generally lighthearted approach to itself (“Why can we beat the Extra stage in Imperishable Night? Because the player is hopelessly addicted to Touhou games!”) captures the imagination like pretty much nothing else out there.

Just look at the remix CD’s at Comiket – from the sometimes breathtakingly intricate cover art, to the music data written on them, “copying” the world of Gensokyo is an effort undertaken by so many people of so many artistic backgrounds that it’s hard to believe that only one person is the source of everything Touhou.

Moving on to the actual file. My favorite Touhou remix group is Alstroemeria Records (the alstroemeria is a flower, btw) of which Masayoshi Minoshima – written in romanji – is a prominant member. A good percent of their stuff dwells too far down into the realm of non-melodic music for me to enjoy for a long period of time, but the songs they remix that still manage to carry a lot of the original “flavor” on top of their individual style have a pretty permanent place on my playlist. Strawberry Crisis!! (two exclamation points) from their trace|phantasmagoria (sic) album is such an example.

Hana Yori Dango isn’t my thing, but…

Hikaru Utada is.

宇多田ヒカル – Flavor Of Life (original version)

I don’t particularly like how her voice gets weird when she tries to hit the lower notes, but the original version is a lot better than the Ballad version in HYD2, which is trying way too hard imho. (The fact that I hate Tsuderekasa probably has a but of influence to that as well…)

It’s kinda j-poppy in the Hikaru Utada way, but I kinda like that in a weird way. It’s good like that.