Anime, Comics, Geek

Interesting Stories

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Today as I was driving into work, I started thinking about what stories do I like the most. What has captivated my attention to keep watching (in anime and TV series) or reading in comics…

From the masterful story teller, Alan Moore, I learned about framing/book-ends — start with one story, show how it leads into another story, then close it out with the original story; tying the two stories together with reference to similar subject matters, a play on words within the exposition, or visuals leading from the first story to the next (ie. zooming into the eye of an character in the first story, switching in the next frame, then zooming out from a different character in the next story). Alan’s background details not only foreshadow things to come, but added atmosphere, depth. His ability to tell multiple stories, where one story thread feed into the other kept me engage.

Alan’s villains also had dimension. Time was given not only to create depth in his heroes, but the bad guys were more thoughtful, twisted.

Switching to anime and a little bit, TV, there are certain stories that I really love. Most of them tend to be Isekai (異世界, “different world”), but with the overall story, the characters are very likable, you want them to succeed, you become invested in them quickly — then something happens and you as the audience despair. The first few seasons of Game of Thrones was like that — you wanted the Starks to win, but then the father is killed. Or for Rob to be happy in love on the battle field, but then the red wedding. But with GoT, after awhile, it became cliche to kill off a characters you became emotionally attached to.

In anime it’s a little different. There tends to be a villain that seem over-powered at first, that comes into the story punching you in the gut. Or the villains are arrogant, weaselly, no more than high-school bullies, but then they pray on some the weaker, timid, shy. You see it coming like a freight train down the tracks, but can’t stop it… In many cases, it’s a change of atmosphere, the visuals are darker, the music switches and you get that sinking feeling in your stomach, that whatever happens, it’s not going to end well.

Comics, Nightmoor, Plots

Nightmoor: Apples, Mirrors and Love

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So in the stuff we had in storage up north, I found a notebook containing ideas for a comic series I wanted to write — it was a little NMBC like, but different… I tried mythology building, played with symbolism, flesh out a few characters, created a town named Nightmoor, set up land marks, introduced elder-gods, etc. Even tried to outline a few simple stories… I obsessed over the mythology, trying to create something Halloween familiar, but not a rip-off of NBMC.

One story was to pull from an old victorian Halloween superstition about apples and mirrors, but more of an older lady, sipping tea in an empty bar, mid-day, sitting at a table near a mirror, cutting up and eating an apple. She is met by her friends — what seems like a common Tuesday afternoon affair — and they pick up from where they left of from the week before with talk… Secretly, the friends knows what she’s doing, the nine apple pieces, the quick glances into the mirror between bites. They tease her from time-to-time during the conversation — very subtilely at first, but as time reaches the point of calling it a day, they call her out on it, chiding her on her childish beliefs… but something unexpected happens…

The intent was set forth a few characters to play into stories later. The tea gathering conversation would give the reader insight into the town of Nighmoor and the local gossip. The twist was to tie the story up into a nice bow… or set the stage for something more sinister… I also like the idea of digging up an almost forgotten about superstition for the basis behind a story.

I should actually take what I wrote and expound upon it, giving it more details… adding tone and atmosphere; drawing upon authors I like to tell a more complex story.

Anime, Otaku

夢 Yume

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On Sunday, ended up getting caught up on a lot of 1st episodes of the new anime season… Many I surprisingly liked, only one I tried to nod off during. The first was A Certain Scientific Railgun (Season 3); I’m like it better than the last season of A Certain Magical Index (which I got lost in; too much politics, too many characters). Then I followed it up with Infinite Dendrogram — little bit of a SAO rip-off, but I still enjoyed it. The third was Uchitama?! Have you Seen my Tama? — which I thought was going to be too cutesy, to the point of being annoyed, but really enjoyed the transition between dog/cat to human & the animators really nailed the animal behaviors. Next was Hetena Illusion — which I thought would be magic girl-esque or silly like Magical Sensai, but turned out to be intriguing. Watched 2 episodes of Keep Your Hands off Eizoken! — mind blowingly good, the animation style is just awesome. And finally, In/Spectre — a story about Yokai.

That night, I had a mash up dream — the world was set in Eizoken, at a hot springs, but the art style was clearly Eizoken. The hot springs were a maze to get into, with the healing waters at the center of the maze. Along the way, I met 4 people who were actually yokai, but switching from animal form to human like in Tama when they interacted with me. One of the characters was the general from the latest SAO Underworld season, the other three have become fuzzy now — all male however… About all I can remember now, but there was a plot/story there… One that made sense in dream logic.

I just realized, Tama reminds me of my almost all-time favorite anime, The Eccentric Family, with how it switches from animal to human.

Personal

私はマイケルです。

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So my Japanese studies continue with Duolingo. I feel a little bit better about hiragana and katakana; I’m just a little slow at reading it. And using the app, I’m picking up some kanji. I need to go back learn more kanji, but right now, I’m working on sentence construction and telling time — it’s been a slow process.

The one app I’m using for learning kanji is a little annoying — it forces you to write correctly (which I’m fine with), but slight deviations can make you miss a character… the line detection is a little buggy. Like my angle might be a little off, so it considers it a fail.

Which brings up an interesting point; my hand writing isn’t the best. I can write in cursive, but I’ve settled on something that’s about 1/2 cursive and 1/2 traditional letters — depends if one letter flows nicely into the next or not. There’s a little “art” when it comes to writing in Japanese with the more complex kanji, any my pragmatic writing style gets in the way sometimes.

The other thing I’m realizing I need to spend more time on is listening… I watch anime in Japanese whilst reading subtitles, but it’s not until recently that I read a word in English and try to pick it out in Japanese. Like the other day, I heard 行く, meaning “to go”, but picked up the conjugated form. Fun, but feel like it’s just the tip of the iceberg (氷山). (heh, that’s ice mountain)

Anime, Otaku

Dr. Stone

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There are a few genres of anime that I typically avoid — sports themed, music themed, something that resembles Power Rangers, generally anything that doesn’t score a 6 or higher on MyAnimeList. One that I started this past year is Dr. Stone because it rated high and it had an interesting premise — all human life on earth becomes petrified, then after thousands of years, one of the most smarts teenagers in the world comes back to life, with a mission to move humanity from the stone age, back to the space age.

The art style is nice; a little goofy at times. The science is sound… but that seems to be the point. Aimed at teaching kids science, and how we moved from point A to point B. There’s no ecchi (although an innocent high school crush among class-mates). Some savagery — there’s a camp of science vs. a camp of might/brawn — building up a war that I’m wondering if it resolve itself peacefully or not. But otherwise, it’s been entertaining and educational… and not my typical anime-fare. I’d definitely recommend watching it.

… There is another anime I’ll talk about later that I’m also watching this fall, that is entertaining as well, but it’s like watching a funny orchestrated train wreck.

Anime, Personal

Fall Time

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It’s fall time, which means I’m down with a cold or sinus infection… Which means that pumpkins are starting to appear at Walmart… Which means a new season of Anime has started…

In the spirit of Maker Faire, I’m thinking I might try doing a LED-lit pumpkin this year… down the street from us, someone has created a Halloween display that looks like a web of pumpkin vines, with carved plastic pumpkins hanging in various places… I’ll try to get a picture of it later. Think Jack-n-the Beanstalk x Pumpkin patch… I should try creating a halloween based mythos and try executing on it…

So this season of Anime is interesting; there’s two anime that I’m trying to figure out if I’ll continue watching. One is where a person from this world is summoned to another world, but instead of immediately jumps in feet first, starts training, and training, and training… he’s overly cautious. The other one is where a professional wrestler is summoned to another world, but doesn’t want to kill monsters, but to open up his own pet shop… I’m thinking the whole “summoned to another world” genre has played itself out?

Otaku, Personal

Japanese Progress

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I’ve completed learning hiragana and katakana, but I’m finding some kana in katakana to be a little similar and confusing. Kanas like シ (shi) and ツ (tsu), or ソ (so) and ン (n) have very subtle differences — the brush strokes are different, but depending on the font type (or if it was written), don’t know if I’ll be able to tell the difference, unless in context. And other kana have similar appearances, like ウ (u), ス (su), ヌ (nu), フ (fu), ラ (ra), ワ (wa), and ヲ (wo). I probably need to spend another 20-30 hours of drilling and writing to get the strokes right.

The other subtle problem I’m having is recalling the right appearance of the kana when given the romanji. Recalling (n) in hiragana is easy, katakana is a little harder… but will just take time & practice. The other issue I’ll have, until I become better a listening, is the difference between short and long vowel sounds — a word like famous, 有名, or ゆうめい. There’s a subtle long (u), that if someone said the word, I’d accidentally omit it.

I need to start learning some vocabulary words next. I don’t feel like I’m at the point of sentence construction or verb conjugation… And with speaking, I find certain sounds to be difficult to say…to go from one sound to other certain sounds doesn’t feel natural yet.

Anime, Otaku, Personal, Travel

犬を飼っています

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So earlier this year, my wife showed me that tickets to Hong Kong were less than $1,000/person round trip. This got me thinking that I wanted us to take a trip to Asia within the next few years… And with both of us being Disney fans, we talked about maybe doing Hong Kong or Tokyo or Shang-hi…

And with being a little disappointed in our trip to San Francisco, we talked about doing a LEGO event outside the US, maybe in Asia… There’s been a LEGO fan event in Japan I’ve been following via Facebook for awhile, and a new fan event in Korea. I’ve always been impressed with the LEGO builders in Hong Kong (HKLUG) since the 2008 Olympics, so that gives us a few possible dates for travel (after Golden Week, before the hottest time of the year) and possible people to try to meet up with…

I can almost read what’s written in hiragana!

I’ve been a bit of a Japanophile/Otaku. Wrote a high school thesis paper on the Japanese educational system. I took a Japanese culture class in college. Dropped out of a Japanese language class — too much on my plate at the time. Probably watch too much anime. So it’s no surprise that I’d like to go to Japan first.

With that in mind, I’ve been listening to a podcast about learning Japanese; I started with the 30 day challenge from 2 years ago… Each episode is about 4-5 minutes long, covering a variety of topics. After about the 4th or 5th episode, it reminded me of why I dropped out of the class; and reminded me of the horrors of taking 3 years of Spanish — with verb conjugation, vocabulary words, etc. It reminded me that some 20ish years ago, I meet with a tutor, a gentleman from Japan to learn Japanese for a brief time; and talks of making flash cards, and advice that I should get a Japanese girlfriend if I really wanted to learn Japanese… But this time, I ended up sticking with it with a new determination, continuing listening to the lessons, with a plan to go back over the 30 days once I learned hiragana/katakana and some kanji. I would try to soak in some of the context, with out stressing out over memorization… I think I’m up to episode 57, some 20ish episodes past the 30 day challenge.

Given that I tried this before the advent of podcasts and smart phones, I feel like I’m a little further along than I expected. I haven’t started with vocabulary words, or sentence construction, I’m just focusing on learning hiragana. I’ve found 3 apps that have been very useful, the first one teaches me how to draw the kana/symbol properly with the correct brush stroke order and say it, then it shows me a romanji version of the kana, and I have to pick out the correct kana from a list of 4. Finally, it shows me a blank screen to draw on, with the romanji version of the kana (and sound), and I’m to draw it with the correct brush strokes. Multiple times a day, I review what I learned, until I get it right — it’s a little frustrating when (especially with ‘ね’) where my brush strokes are slightly off. The 2nd app is just a simple quiz/flashcard app. It either shows me the romanji version of the kana, and I have to pick out the right now, or it says the kana or a word in Japanese, and I have to pick it out from a list. The final app is more of a speed quiz, same as the second app, but I can choose what kana I’ve learned and it will drill me on those only… the goal is to get 100% each time, in the 20ish seconds I get to pick the correct symbol… the 3rd app is a little more nerve-racking, but by not being able to adjust the guessing time, I’ve gotten quicker.

… I don’t know where this will take me. I’m hoping by a year or two of study, I might be able to read signs and maybe have a basic grasp of conversation — maybe end up being JLPT 4 with a stretch goal of JLPT 3.

Comics, Geek

The Green

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Once upon a time, I created a web-site called The Green dedicated to DC’s anti-superhero Swamp Thing. I had a few collaborator that sent me content. It talked about the comics, the animated series, the TV show, the movies, and the toys. I wanted to build a comic book database with pictures, summaries, synapses and reviews, but I was learning PHP at the time and was trying to figure out the best way to build it, while failing to add data to the DB. I still have all the image files somewhere and some old static pages…

With the advent of streaming services and the success of Marvel’s complex stories via the MCU, DC is trying to tap into the zeitgeist by producing Titans, Doom Patrol and now Swamp Thing. After there’s been a few episodes released, I’ll start watching it; in the mean time I’m avoiding reviews. I have mixed feelings about it… could be all horror, without Alan Moore’s poetic words in the background to help frame up each episode. Or could follow in the foot steps of it’s former series… which didn’t really appeal to me — felt more like a B-rated horror flick. And to be honest, I don’t think any of it will capture Alan Moore’s run on Swamp Thing… Or I could be wrong and smarter people than me are doing just that.

Anyway, more later…

UPDATE: Well, maybe not… Looks like the series might have been cancelled.

Comics, Geek

Doom Patrol

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The more I read Grant Morrison’s work, I find myself in a suspended state of discontent. I’ve read some of this Batman work, Animal Man, JSA, Filth, Supergods and found it to be ok… Some of it is hit-or-miss with me. And I think part of my problem is, I’ve compared his work too much to Alan Moore, since most critics tend compare one against the other… I’ve fallen into this trap too.

I’ve watched Happy! and found myself liking this dark, creepy, surreal world Morrison created (I haven’t started Season 2 yet). The translation from graphic novel to tv worked. Morrison’s worlds tend to be fucked up, no sugar coating, or no ultimate force of good — either you’re ignorant, or depraved. His heroes tend to be just as depraved as the villains, but at some point, some imaginary friend helps them in finding a moral compass and do what’s right… ish.

I’ve read reviews where they summarize Morrison to be a two-bit, shock-artist that lack substance… The latex fetish scenes just just reinforce this idea. But every once in awhile, Morrison has nuggets of good ideas.

When I started Doom Patrol, I suspected the show runners would source Morrison’s work for stories; and I didn’t know how I’d feel about that or how well it would translate to a tv series. And to be honest, it hasn’t disappointed. Similar to Happy!, the main characters suffer from past wrong-doings. The shock-value is there, but might be toned down (being a DC property).

I like the idea that the super-villain exists outside the 4th dimension in the “white space”. It allows for interesting (funny) commentary on the show and characters itself. The show plays on chance and happenstance in some interesting ways (similar to another show I’ve been following, Milo Murphy’s Law)…