Novel Eye

So, Avatar is ending tonight in a big two hour movie. Avatar is a cartoon on Nickelodeon . It's been running for three years. I'm sad it's ending, but it is inevitable. Ang , the Avatar, is the last air bender in a world where there are benders for the four elements. He already knew air, first season was water, second season was earth and now, tonight, he has to defeat the Fire Lord who has conquered the world. He has to bring balance. Avatar is an American cartoon made by people who (apparently) love Anime . Really, really love Anime . It looks like anime , it breaks with reality into chibi or SuperDeformed like anime , where in the midst of serious battle a character will have the anime sweat or the throbbing vein on his forehead. I can't find any good pictures of this, unfortunately. It's generated a lot of cosplay which should tell you that it's been embraced as anime . I've dragged my husband into being a big fan of the show. It's well written f...

...except that I finally confirmed that I had the correct spelling and usage from a Japanese friend, I opened a CafePress shop . I have done absolutely nothing to promote it yet. My husband hopes to add some Dr. Whovian related items and I have a few more ideas. Two thoughts on that--one, should I report the people who are blatantly stealing copyrighted work and passing it off as their own, or leave it alone? And two, and this will only be funny to half of my tiny readership. There's a shirt that I covet there that says, "I wanted to learn Alchemy, but it costs and arm and a leg." Bwa -ha-ha, ROFL, snort. Oh, and even more one more thing--should I add "Nan dai yo, ne ?" to the back, just to be more clear?

At the end of Paprika my husband whispered, "Well, that's Tokyo destroyed again." It is certainly a common occurrence in anime (and in Japanese film if one considers Godzilla and others). Do we consider these part of the "special" status that Japan holds as the only country to be attacked with a nuclear bomb? A few years ago there was an exhibit on whether that peculiar distinction has led to what is popular culture in Japan, from Godzilla to Gundam (giant robots) to Hello Kitty. There are actually Hello Kitty vibrators and feminine products for sale (don't ask me how I know)--not just cute and cuddly. The giant crater of Paprika, the blinding flash of Otomo's Akira , many others I can't recall at the moment--is this an attempt to deal with the aftermath? Too, is Satoshi Kon's obsession with what is repressed an effort to acknowledge what is publicly avoided by the Japanese--namely their own part in the atrocities of WWII? http://www.npr.org...

This one's for Matt, maybe B if she ever swings by and maybe Musing. OMG ! Paprika Just saw it this afternoon--really glad we went to a theater. I've only ever seen Satoshi Kon 's other works on the small screen. For anyone else who cares, SK is another anime director (besides Hayao Miyazaki ). I stumbled onto him quite by accident because his TV show Paranoia Agent was playing late at night. I would catch a few episodes and then miss some but I was very impressed. Then L'Arc (it all comes back to L'Arc , just deal with it) has a song called Perfect Blue and SK made a film called Perfect Blue that came out around the same time. I still think that Tetsu based his lyrics on the film, but I've found nothing to support that. Anyway, we requested Perfect Blue from Netflix , and we've been hooked. We quickly got Millennium Actress and then caught by chance, Tokyo Godfathers on TV. With the exception of Tokyo Godfathers all of his films break the notion of re...