Mega Megane Moé

[12 Days 2010 S-2] Once You Pon, You Just Kan’t Stop

Dec 26th

Slowly, surely, the 12 Days move along in traditional M3 style.
Which is to say, never on time, usually tl;dr, and always bigger in scope than I usually intended.
I thought what I’d do was, I’d pretend I was intentionally delaying the last two entries, when really what I was busy doing was getting distracted to the tune of what was apparently about 5 hours over the course of a day.

Let’s just say I was watching a flower bloom.
A flower on top of the mountain.
(“Rinshan kaihou.”)

12 Days S-2
Once You Pon, You Just Kan’t Stop
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[12 Days 2010 S-1] Everyone Loves Ronery: A Vanilla Moment

Dec 25th

Posted by canon in blog general

(click for larger image)

I’m actually feeling pretty good this Christmas, but still…

Keep only one love.
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2010 “Twelve Days of Anime” #3: The Pinnacle of Modern Visual Culture

Dec 24th

Posted by canon in 12 Days

Firstly, I’d like to take this introduction to immortalize the 12th episode of the first season of The World God Only Knows (as seen on yesterday’s rambling, poetic love letter to Keima Katsuragi).

Yes, there was a lot of galge and old console referencing which should make any nerd chuckle with nostalgia. But as a whole, the entire episode left me giggling uncontrollably, in a way which should only be reserved for high school girls, lying on stomach in bed, kicking their legs in the air as they talk on the phone.

That analogy is meant to spin a positive connotation, by the way.

It’s all the more impressive because the episode is a painting of Keima as a delusional obsessed madman at worst, and a painting of Keima as a delusional obsessed wildly skilled madman at best.

Also, it’s filler and accomplishes less than nothing. Not even some token character development.

Yet, somehow, the animation and the sound brings Keima’s insanity to life. Perhaps the ‘season-ending’ nature of the episode trumps the filler content, and thus allows it a budget that allows it to paint dramatics and grandeur.

Yes. This is the joy one derives from watching Keima in his natural environment.
As long as he’s happy … right?

Anyway, we now return to our regularly scheduled slice-of-life on a plane.

“Twelve Days of Anime” Countdown 2010
#3: The first half of Genshiken or so
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2010 “Twelve Days of Anime” #4: Captured by the Knight

Dec 23rd

Posted by canon in 12 Days

(Check out the other 12 Days of Anime posts around the otakusphere, by Aorii, 8C, prototype27, Scamp,schneider, the cast at Borderline Hikkikomori, TWWK, Landon, Janette, digiboy, drmchsr0, doctordazza, Fawkes,FNSNA, super rats, the crew over at Anime Diet, Jubbz, RP, TheBigN, Jinx, mefloraine, Caraniel, glothelegend, Chii,Valence, dai1313, bitmapchaos,,Shinmaru, and more! If you’re participating and I haven’t linked you yet, please let me know. And it’s never too late to join in reminiscing some of the moments that made your year~)

A while ago on my Tumblr, I introduced the punderful concept of ‘role manels’, a portmanteau of ‘man’ and ‘role models’.

Such a term was born out of bad puns, but came to fruition because of the nature of most of the male characters I would consider my favorites. (Yes, you could consider this one way or another a continuation of yesterday’s post.)

They tend to fall into two discrete categories, I found. There are a few that I find likable because of their feminine, slightly adorable nature; these are the characters that I – willingly or unwillingly – ignore the assigned gender for and coo over as if they were packing twice the X chromosomes.

But more often, there are the guys who are exceedingly ‘manly’ that act, indeed, as ‘role manels’. Here, ‘manly’ usually doesn’t mean the traditional America definition of shirt-busting muscle and raw adrenaline-packed gung-ho action, but perhaps an ideal more suited to the BL spectrum – that of the suave, slickly dressed, calm, collected, and in control gentleman.

One could say, the type of man that some would like to imagine themselves as occasionally. Perhaps an uncommon ideal, but definitely one that exists, at least to some extent on the spectrum of bishieness.

But, what happens, whether on a subjective or objective level, when a guy – much less a series as a whole – appeals to both of these ideals?

“Twelve Days of Anime” Countdown 2010
#3: Keima Katsuragi and The World God Only Knows
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2010 “Twelve Days of Anime” #5: Readman or Die

Dec 22nd

Posted by canon in 12 Days

Recently I’ve been contemplating the most important topic of all in anime, and that is the concept of the ‘waifu’.

Aside from being a term I hate for its strong internet-tard connotations, I’m also beginning to conflict with the way it has also become quite synonymous with ‘favorite character’.

This isn’t to say I don’t approve of, or don’t participate in, the endless debates of favorite characters, and the endless cycle of becoming infinitely infatuated with endless girls named Shiori. Certainly I do.

But, as I’ve shown time and time again with the way I track essentially ‘waifu competitions’ like Saimoe and ISML, I think some more statwanking is in order.

Since certainly there can be more than one ‘type’ of favorite character. Which is why I find the ‘waifu’ lacking. I think there are naturally many different ways to find characters attractive.

Although certainly, a character can fulfill more than one of these ways.

“Twelve Days of Anime” Countdown 2010
#5: Yomiko Readman (also the Read or Die OVAs)

Between the fanboying, the waifu wanking (an interesting oxymoron, actually), the ‘having seen it over half a year ago in one night’ and the being two days behind, there’s not a lot I have to say about the Read or Die OVAs.

I don’t know how many posts I’ve done in a row where I stated my reasons for putting an anime in the list as “sheer enjoyment”. The Read or Die OVAs could slot under this. Coming in to roughly the length of a movie, they’re a nice standalone way to watch some action, some tension, and some Yomiko being Yomiko.

Perhaps I put Read or Die especially high because of the fact that I was able to watch something ‘different’ (i.e. not a moe-moe anime or a harem / visual-novel conversion) and still like it. So it’s a little pat on the back for enjoying something that is more “ordinary”, a more “typical” fantasy-action story. If anything can be termed that.

Or maybe it’s how Read or Die helped contextualize Code-E a bit more, in the way how the latter seems like a strong homage to the former. A world reasonably but not too far removed from the current day, with a big-band instrumental OP and an adorable yet strong lead female meganekko who gets caught in a bunch of action sequences … what’s not to like about either of them?

Or maybe it’s Yomiko after all.

One day I’ll probably expand out the concept of the “Waifu Groove Radar”. It’s suchly named after the DDR pentagon, which measures five distinct traits of a song, providing a sense of what a song is like in multiple dimensions without having to rely on just the single difficulty rating it is reduced to.

And I think that sort of distinction is important for favorite characters. Since some are hot. Some are cute. Some are relatable. Some are smart. And others are just plain Shiori. Yet they are all likable in their own way. And well … five dimensions means five times the ratingwank.

As well as five more categories to assign perfect scores to for Yomiko. Is she the next girl I won’t shut up about? Who knows. Since – just like in DDR – even if the meter is maxed, it doesn’t always imply a single superlative~

(Oh, and as to why Yomiko is amazing? Use your own judgment~ Maybe that will be discussed someday too.)