From A.N.N.
Haruhi Suzumiya Franchise Reveals Full Music Video for Invincible(ish) Happiness!
Haruhi Suzumiya Franchise Launches Crowdfunding for Two New Songs, Music Video
Reply
Category Archives: Kyoto Animation
Haruhi Suzumiya Franchise Launches Crowdfunding for New Song, Music Video
From A.N.N.
Follow up posts (from A.N.N.)
Aya Hirano, the voice of Haruhi, announces her marriage.
Details in the link below, the staff and management of this site wish them good health, success and happiness for many years to come. (I know it’s kind of old news but good news anyway)
Bakacast – I Want to Sparkle
iTunes | Direct Download | RSS
I’m sorry these podcasts keep coming out late, but my spring semester is almost over and the work is piling up. I’ll be editing and posting episodes much quicker after the first week of May. And hopefully Jon will be caught up on anime around that time so he return to his regular hosting duties.
In the meantime, we brought Scamp, writer of the Cart Driver blog, on as a guest host this week. Marvel at his soothing Irish voice as he explains exactly why no one should ever watch Apocalypse Zero. Also, this marks the first week we finally decide to drop some shows. Because watching and talking about over a dozen shows each week is kind of tiring.
We cover:
- 3:08 – Gosick #13
- 7:11 – Suite PreCure #10
- 9:27 – X-Men #3
- 14:01 – Nichijou #3 (dropped)
- 21:29 – Tiger & Bunny #3
- 26:06 – Hanasaku Iroha #3
- 35:59 – Battle Girls #3
- 40:39 – Steins;Gate #3
- 46:22 – Sket Dance #3 (dropped)
- 50:55 – A-Channel #2
- 53:20 – Blue Exorcist #1
- 59:27 – Aria of Scarlet Ammo #1 (dropped)
- 1:10:56 – AnoHana #1
- 1:21:05 – Deadman Wonderland #1
- 1:30:00 – Listener question
You’ve probably noticed that the second episode of C and the finale of Madoka are not on that list. That’s because those episodes aired after we were done recording (Madoka actually aired a mere two hours after). We’ll talk about them in the next episode, I promise.
If you would like to submit listener questions for a future episode, you can email them to bakacast[at]projectharuhi.net,@reply them to Project Haruhi’s Twitter account using the hashtag #bakacast, or leave them in the comments below.
Bakacast – Punch It in the Gun
iTunes | Direct Download | RSS
Jon is absent again this week, but that’s okay. We kidnapped Thomas to help us talk about the second week of the spring season, where we still managed to miss a couple shows (Aria of the Scarlet Ammo, for instance, was released by gg two hours before before we started recording). Somehow, even with over a dozen shows to talk about and a news section, we managed to keep this podcast under two hours. I think we might finally be getting decent at this whole reviewing thing.
We cover:
- 2:47 – FUNimation licenses Panty & Stocking
- 5:03 – The gg karaoke party (I’m singing on the far left, koda’s right next to me with the mic)
- 7:47 – Gosick #12
- 14:13 – Suite PreCure #8 & #9
- 18:45 – X-Men #2
- 23:12 – Nichijou #2
- 28:28 – Tiger & Bunny #2
- 32:57 – Hanasaku Iroha #2
- 40:12 – Toriko #2 (dropped)
- 45: 32 – Battle Girls #1 & #2
- 53:03 – Steins;Gate #2
- 1:00:45 – Sket Dance #2
- 1:06:55 – A-Channel #1
- 1:13:54 – C: The Money of Soul #1
- 1:19:59 – Macross Frontier #23, 24, 25
- 1:33:56 – Listener question from Jon (you’ll want to click this link for context)
Bakacast – Winter Wrap Up
iTunes | Direct Download | RSS
Welcome to the last Bakacast of the winter season. It seems like only yesterday that we watched those first episodes, huh?
Jon wasn’t able to join us, so we kicked Fractale out the door, bid fond farewell to Wandering Son and Level E, and hosted our last Star Driver Love Party without him. We then start the first round of spring season reviews with a pretty respectable amount of anime. Expect the list, as always, to be cut in half by the time we figure out which shows we want to stick with.
And which shows we can convince each other to watch.
We cover:
- 2:19 – Mass Effect animated film announced
- 5:04 – Gosick #11
- 8:37 – Level E #13
- 11:22 – Fractale #11
- 17:13 – Wandering Son #11
- 22:11 – Star Driver #25
- 29:49 – X-Men #1
- 34:23 – Nichijou #1
- 40:09 – Tiger and Bunny #1
- 46:05 – Hanasaku Iroha #1
- 54:47 – Steins;Gate #1
- 1:00:49 – Sket Dance
- 1:09:32 – Macross Frontier #21 & #22
- 1:18:06 – Listener questions
All you bronies out there should appreciate the songs I chose for this episode.
It Got Better – Nichijou 1
Nichijou teaches about some of Japan's most famous souvenirs... by dropping them on Yuuko's noggin.
The most terrible thing that can happen to a fan is seeing their object of affection losing its touch. Hipsters cry indie tears when they hear the new ‘mainstream’ album by what used to be their favorite band. Film lovers pull the hair out of their heads when they see the person who used to be a great director releasing one piece of crap after another. And I suppose a lot of Kyoto Animation lovers felt the exact same when the studio wasted another 26 episodes on the Sakura High Light Music Club and dealt the death blow with the terrible abomination that was Nichijou episode 0. But worry not, fellow slice-of-life fans: the actual show makes up for this. Kinda.
Animated Ambien – Nichijou 0
Warning: Action speedlines not indicative of actual content.
Talk about a disappointment. Kyoto Animation’s Nichijou, an adaptation of the 4-koma manga that ran in Shonen Ace, originally interested me because most sources described it as a mix between Azumanga Daioh and Cromartie High School. Both of those shows would make my top 10 anime list. Episode 0, however, contains entirely original content not found in the manga, and it doesn’t exactly speak well for the competence of the staff.
Simply put, Nichijou is one of the worst things I’ve ever watched.
Continue reading
Bakacast – Sparking!!
iTunes | Direct Download | RSS
This week on Bakacast, we try something new for our opening segment and talk about what we’ve been playing and/or watching during the past week. Which means that I finally get to talk about video games on my anime podcast. Glorious freedom!
Anyway, Madoka didn’t air and Gosick wasn’t subbed in time, so we took the opportunity to catch up with Break Blade, fall asleep during Nichijou and discuss a K-On! doujin (yes, really). In other news, the Fractale hate train keeps rolling, the Star Driver love party returns and we give our advice for how you–YES, YOU!–can be Internet-famous podcasters (DISCLAIMER: May not actually make you Internet-famous).
We cover:
- 2:27 – What we’ve been watching/playing
- 15:27 – FUNimation backpedals
- 21:22 – Deconstructing K-On!
- 29:18 – Nichijou #0
- 35:25 – Break Blade #4
- 43:12 – Level E #11
- 47:43 – Fractale #9
- 53:07 – Wandering Son #9
- 59:01 – Star Driver #23
- 1:07:01 – Suite PreCure #6
- 1:11:06 – Macross Frontier #17 & #18
- 1:20:12 – Listener questions
Deconstructing K-ON! – The Takotsuboya Doujin Trilogy
Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
-Kurt Vonnegut
The super-saccharine moeblob slice-of-life genre received a lot of attention, both positive and negative, during the run of K-ON!. This show is the archetypal example of that genre, easily outclassing any of KyoAni’s previous works in popularity. However, despite its immense celebrity and polarizing effect on the anime fandom, I have yet to see K-ON! receive a proper deconstruction. With Madoka making literary analysis of old genres cool again, as well as the recent announcement of a “K-ON! in college” manga, I feel like this is the perfect time for moe as a genre to be scorched and refined in the crucible of deconstruction.
Alas, the only media I’ve come across that comes close to accomplishing this is the infamous Takotsuboya K-ON! doujin trilogy. From a storytelling perspective, these doujins could not be considered good. They contain the requisite awkwardly-placed sex scenes and out-of-place pervertedness that is characteristic of doujins, making suspension of disbelief impossible. But they also contain several ingenious, even brilliant insights into how the HTT girls would fit into the real world. Many of these insights are gleaned from the author’s experience as a failed mangaka who repeatedly tried anything and everything to get his work published.
Dusty and Glen believe that these doujins treated the girls too harshly, replacing the fluffy, idealistic world of the show with an equally brutal and vindictive antithesis. I, on the other hand, think any good deconstruction has to put its characters through hell, in order to scour away their veneer and reveal their true quality. But I want your opinion, friend reader. In order to spare you the ordeal of reading this admittedly substandard doujin, I will describe the fate of each character below. You tell me whether you think it represents an accurate character interpretation, or an overly grim attempt by the author to soil these much-beloved moeblobs.
More after the break.