Things have been busy here in the Fortress of Otakutude lately, not much time for finding new things and pontificating about them or revisiting old things that deserve another mention. I'm extra excited for Anime Expo this year, the guest lineup is shaping up to be super solid and I am especially excited to see/hear Yuki Kajiura and ANIMETAL USA.
Some other bits of great news:
The Protomen have finally released their Queen tribute album, A Night of Queen. If I thought these guys were the rockinest band out there before, they are doubly so now. I've been listening to it non stop since it arrived last Friday and am afraid I'm going to wear out the tracks for Don't Stop Me Now and I Want it All. Gonna have to order four or five more to keep handing out and spreading the love.
We have secured Larry Pesce as the keynote speaker for Hack3rcon this year. As the premier information security con in WV, I can't recommend it highly enough for anyone with even a peripheral interest or involvement in security and infosec. (Full disclosure: I am Secretary of the 304geeks board)
That's it for now, look for things to ramp up in the near future and for updates live and direct from Anime Expo in sunny Los Angeles.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
Funimation Live Q&A
Sitting here watching the Q&A session. Funimation has always done right by me and brought over some great series, and while the Sengoku Basara clip was pretty epic, so many of the English VAs still fail pretty massively. I can count on one hand the dubs that are as good as (and in one case, IMO better) than the original. If anyone is curious, I believe that Black Lagoon is overall better in English (even if Maryke Hendrikse isn't quite as malevolent sounding as Megumi Toyoguchi).
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Turn Your Radio On
I've spent most of the evening reading and writing here in the home office (read: relaxing and screwing around in the converted dining room) and listening to music. At first, I had my Madeleine Peyroux station playing on Pandora, but come 6:00 it was time to turn on NPR and enjoy A Prairie Home Companion for some of that old timey radio show flavor that we are missing out on. My grandma still talks about sitting in the evenings and listening to the Grand Ole Opry and Kay Kyser and Kraft Music Hall long before they ever got a television.
I love how PHC works to keep alive the classic medium of radio and the format of the radio variety show. Tonight was a show commemorating what would have been Bill Monroe's 100th birthday, and with the number of guests who used to play with Monroe, it was really something.
(I realize this post has nothing to do with otakudom, but I don't care.)
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| Listen to the music in the air... |
(I realize this post has nothing to do with otakudom, but I don't care.)
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Bloody Monday
I was at Books-a-Million today and ran across this title and a)liked the art style and b)thought I'd heard the name. After reading the first chapter, it turns out I watched the live action drama adaptation of it a few years ago because it looked interesting and for some reason turned up in the same search results as the live action You're Under Arrest (which rocked out with its White Hawk out, I might add). Picked up the first two volumes and just read volume one. If it stays as good as it starts, this one will go on the shelf beside Black Lagoon and Gunsmith Cats. (Is it EXTREMELY obvious yet that I like my girls and my guns?)
Bloody Monday follows a group of high school friends (one of which is a genius hacker who uses the handle Falcon) after they uncover a plot to unleash a biological weapon. I really dig the artwork and character design, and despite the subject matter being a little bit heavy, they're not afraid to go chibi or fanservicey when needed. I also enjoy the fact that when Maya is thinking her mercenary thoughts while posing as a teacher, they don't feel the need to shade her face or do the sharp-eyes thing. IMO the smiling "lah dee dah dee dah I'm a teeeeacher...and I am going to shoot or infect every one of you" is much more malevolent.
I don't know how it would do as an anime series, since the manga and live formats seem to suit it best, but I'd be first in line for the Maya and Sayuri figurines. Speaking of Sayuri, I love her type of character and her style/personality are perfect. In a bit of a tie-in to You're Under Arrest, the actress (and singer and gravure idol) who played her in the drama was Katase Nana, who also sang the extremely catchy theme song "Galaxy" for the live action You're Under Arrest.
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| Guns and "assets"? Holy BALLS, how did I miss this one? |
I don't know how it would do as an anime series, since the manga and live formats seem to suit it best, but I'd be first in line for the Maya and Sayuri figurines. Speaking of Sayuri, I love her type of character and her style/personality are perfect. In a bit of a tie-in to You're Under Arrest, the actress (and singer and gravure idol) who played her in the drama was Katase Nana, who also sang the extremely catchy theme song "Galaxy" for the live action You're Under Arrest.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Mmmm....Shojo....
It's been a while since a new shojo or S-kankei show came out that looked really interesting. Think it's time for the ol' Otaku to watch Maria-sama ga Miteru again. Wonder if I can find the live action movie easily...ooh or any new Takarazuka Revue stuff.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Hackers and Anime
Hackers and Anime. They go together well, don't they? Serial Experiments Lain, Ghost in the Shell, Steins;Gate, Battle Programmer Shirase, Bubblegum Crisis, all classics in their own right (well, maybe not Battle Programmer Shirase...). The medium gives the writers and directors complete freedom to invent their world and shape that worlds technological evolution to support their storytelling. How could Serial Experiments Lain have become the phenomenon that it was without a free hand at re-imagining our world? Had it been a live action work, how could the sense of integration between the Wired and the real world have been so grandly achieved?
As we watch these works, it is worth considering that in the long run, no matter how far fetched and impossible some of these scenarios may seem, we really do have the potential to shape our world until it resembles not so much what it is today, but what we dreamed about yesterday. With the proliferation of network-connected security cameras, the standardization on iOS and Android smartphones, and the instant feedback, small attention span worlds of Twitter and Facebook, how far fetched is it that some external actor may be able to slice and dice these data streams at will? Like the Laughing Man, the "eyes" of the wired society could be deceived into displaying what they want them to, not what is really there. We can look at Zeus and other botnets out there that harness the power of thousands upon thousands of unwittingly infected computers and see that it is not beyond the realm of possibility to infect a significant portion of devices and have what amounts to complete control over them. And what if infection is not even required? In Zero History, William Gibson floats the interesting idea of an undisclosed 'feature' being built into the very architecture of visual recording equipment to either stop recording or destroy the resulting image when they detect a particular image.
I'm not much of one for futurism, but just thinking about these things is exciting (and sometimes terrifying) no matter how far-fetched they may seem at the time. Who would have though that when the TalkBoy was the coolest toy around, in 15 years everyone would be carrying around a little gadget the size of a cigarette case that can make calls, browse the internet, check email, play music, take pictures, show where you are on a map, and let you post cute cat pictures to the web?
How do we even begin to shape the future of our tech-obsessed world? A crucial step is that we must realize and accept that technology is here to stay and it is just that, technology. No one would say that a pencil and pad of paper or a printed book controls our lives, but every day we hear neo-luddites and self proclaimed intellectuals scream bloody murder that cell phones and video games and computers are making us their slaves. This is bunk. We are at a critical point in our technological evolution and are just coming to grips with being able to hold an almost infinite amount of knowledge in one hand. That knowledge is just data, though, without the volition of the human mind. In and of itself, it offers nothing more than a closed and locked library. I do 90% of my work and writing with a pen and notebook, I'm not fond of tablets, and I don't really like twitter. However, I recognize that these are technologies and ideas and new modes of social interaction that as a society we must learn to harness and direct to our greatest benefit.
A key part of shaping the future of technology is knowing how to not only imagine that technology, but to defend it, break it, fix it, modify it, reverse engineer it, and make it do exactly what we want. To that end, it is worth checking out local groups of technology enthusiasts, whether it be at a local hackspace or maker gathering, or even science fiction night at the local library. Two groups/evens that I endorse wholeheartedly are (full disclosure: I am a member of the first, staff of the second):
304geeks is a West Virginia-based group that seeks to bring together professional and non-professional geeks for networking, camaraderie, and the sharing of knowledge. Find an event and stop by, we'd love to hear from you.
Hack3rCon is an information security conference put on by 304geeks in association with CharCon, the Charleston, WV gaming convention. Hack3rCon provides access to some of the most exciting speakers and developers in the information technology arena in a relaxed, social atmosphere. As a charitable organization, Hack3rCon also supports Hackers for Charity and their work to feed and educate the world's most vulnerable citizens.
As we watch these works, it is worth considering that in the long run, no matter how far fetched and impossible some of these scenarios may seem, we really do have the potential to shape our world until it resembles not so much what it is today, but what we dreamed about yesterday. With the proliferation of network-connected security cameras, the standardization on iOS and Android smartphones, and the instant feedback, small attention span worlds of Twitter and Facebook, how far fetched is it that some external actor may be able to slice and dice these data streams at will? Like the Laughing Man, the "eyes" of the wired society could be deceived into displaying what they want them to, not what is really there. We can look at Zeus and other botnets out there that harness the power of thousands upon thousands of unwittingly infected computers and see that it is not beyond the realm of possibility to infect a significant portion of devices and have what amounts to complete control over them. And what if infection is not even required? In Zero History, William Gibson floats the interesting idea of an undisclosed 'feature' being built into the very architecture of visual recording equipment to either stop recording or destroy the resulting image when they detect a particular image.
I'm not much of one for futurism, but just thinking about these things is exciting (and sometimes terrifying) no matter how far-fetched they may seem at the time. Who would have though that when the TalkBoy was the coolest toy around, in 15 years everyone would be carrying around a little gadget the size of a cigarette case that can make calls, browse the internet, check email, play music, take pictures, show where you are on a map, and let you post cute cat pictures to the web?
How do we even begin to shape the future of our tech-obsessed world? A crucial step is that we must realize and accept that technology is here to stay and it is just that, technology. No one would say that a pencil and pad of paper or a printed book controls our lives, but every day we hear neo-luddites and self proclaimed intellectuals scream bloody murder that cell phones and video games and computers are making us their slaves. This is bunk. We are at a critical point in our technological evolution and are just coming to grips with being able to hold an almost infinite amount of knowledge in one hand. That knowledge is just data, though, without the volition of the human mind. In and of itself, it offers nothing more than a closed and locked library. I do 90% of my work and writing with a pen and notebook, I'm not fond of tablets, and I don't really like twitter. However, I recognize that these are technologies and ideas and new modes of social interaction that as a society we must learn to harness and direct to our greatest benefit.
A key part of shaping the future of technology is knowing how to not only imagine that technology, but to defend it, break it, fix it, modify it, reverse engineer it, and make it do exactly what we want. To that end, it is worth checking out local groups of technology enthusiasts, whether it be at a local hackspace or maker gathering, or even science fiction night at the local library. Two groups/evens that I endorse wholeheartedly are (full disclosure: I am a member of the first, staff of the second):
304geeks is a West Virginia-based group that seeks to bring together professional and non-professional geeks for networking, camaraderie, and the sharing of knowledge. Find an event and stop by, we'd love to hear from you.
Hack3rCon is an information security conference put on by 304geeks in association with CharCon, the Charleston, WV gaming convention. Hack3rCon provides access to some of the most exciting speakers and developers in the information technology arena in a relaxed, social atmosphere. As a charitable organization, Hack3rCon also supports Hackers for Charity and their work to feed and educate the world's most vulnerable citizens.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Highschool of the Deadpan Delivery
The English adaptation/translation of High School of the Dead is moderately OK, but wow most of the voice actors are baaaaaad. IMO they need to shitcan 90% of the VAs working in the US and either hire people who don't make it sound like a 5th grade play, or (oh how I would love to see this) cut out the middle man and stop releasing dubs.
Production is becoming more and more narrowly focused these days that many new series are really only attractive to fans of particular genres, there's not as much broad appeal to the whole community of fandom as there was even five years ago. Now when a new show comes out, it's virtually guaranteed to be aimed a moe fans, magical girl fans, action fans, monster battle or trading card fans, or any of the other major subgroups of otaku. I don't think most of them mind reading subtitles to get their fix.
Also, though it pains me somewhat to say it, I wouldn't mind seeing the accessibility barrier to entry into anime fandom come back to some degree. I remember back in the day when getting a third generation VHS copy of a fansubbed show that was less than a year old was one of the best things you could hope for, and if you were talking to someone who knew what Magic Knight Rayearth was, you could be virtually assured they were someone you had something in common with and could hold a good conversation with. Nowadays when it comes to talking anime, more than half the time they turn out to only know bleach or naruto or some other cartoon network faggotry and have no knowledge of, or desire to know about, anything else. Branch out you bastards, there's a whole world of excellent stuff out there you'll never see otherwise.
Production is becoming more and more narrowly focused these days that many new series are really only attractive to fans of particular genres, there's not as much broad appeal to the whole community of fandom as there was even five years ago. Now when a new show comes out, it's virtually guaranteed to be aimed a moe fans, magical girl fans, action fans, monster battle or trading card fans, or any of the other major subgroups of otaku. I don't think most of them mind reading subtitles to get their fix.
Also, though it pains me somewhat to say it, I wouldn't mind seeing the accessibility barrier to entry into anime fandom come back to some degree. I remember back in the day when getting a third generation VHS copy of a fansubbed show that was less than a year old was one of the best things you could hope for, and if you were talking to someone who knew what Magic Knight Rayearth was, you could be virtually assured they were someone you had something in common with and could hold a good conversation with. Nowadays when it comes to talking anime, more than half the time they turn out to only know bleach or naruto or some other cartoon network faggotry and have no knowledge of, or desire to know about, anything else. Branch out you bastards, there's a whole world of excellent stuff out there you'll never see otherwise.
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