1 Oh, come on. You think that's bad, try "learning while doing" Flash! (Someday I got to go back and wade through the tutorials. I'm sure I'll learn all kinds of useful things.)

2

Oh, I've read your epic struggles attempting to wrangle some functionality out of Flash. It allows me to marvel at people who can put together stuff like this.

I wish I'd been blogging back when I was teaching myself how to use the editor for the Unreal franchise of games. It would have made for an interesting case-study of a decent into madness.

3 I have a lot of the same problems with Photoshop. I can use it to do most of what I need to do, no sweat; that's because most of what I need to do is "paste a layer over another layer and line them up".

But some things are just impenetrable in the interface. Today, for example - I was working on Lucky Star, a caption where Akira's holding a sign upside-down humorously. Naturally, the client has requested that this sign be subtitled upside-down, which is fine as that's how I was doing it anyway... But for whatever reason, I -cannot- find the function that says "take the selection and flip it upside down". I ended up just rotating the entire canvas instead and dragging the sign to where I wanted it...

I get the feeling that if I knew enough to write some basic scripts in Photoshop, I could save myself a significant amount of carpal wear (that volume of Lucky Star meant, literally, hundreds of subtitles copy/pasted over each other). But I have no idea where to start...

4

You maybe be aggravated to know that Microsoft Paint does exactly what you're asking for.

1) Select Region (if no region specified, it does the whole image)

2) Image>Flip/Rotate - select your mutation of choice

3)Profit

 

5

I use MS Paint and MS Digital Editor 2006 for most basic things... most of my screenshots are resized, cropped, and color-fiddled using Digital Editor, Paint is used if I have to scribble on the pic.

I use them because I know how to use them.  P'Shop is a great program, very useful for a lot of things, but there are times where having your head run over by a main battle tank would hurt less.

But if you really want to learn the meaning of 'pain', try to teach yourself how to use Adobe AfterEffects.  I've been trying to do just that for the past six months or so, and I've barely gotten to the point where I can get the main editing screen set up the way I like it.

That might be one reason why I haven't gotten much done, editing-wise recently.

6 Photoshop: Edit -> Transform -> Rotate 180

-j

7 No, I knew Paint had that capability. But the reason I'm using Photoshop is that the files have to be maintained to a very certain image specification or they won't work on the DVDs; part of that is "absolutely no alpha layer". Photoshop won't put one in there if it doesn't start with one; practically everything else will... ;_;

J, I'll give that a whirl when I get home, see how it works.

1

craig's list, craig's list, craig's list

Know what?

craig's list

I'm cereal

2 Craig's list is a definite place to look. It's that pesky "cash on-hand" problem.

3 230 mill will definetely come in handy ^^;

4

Yeah, I could buy all the anime ever made and a theater to watch them in.

5 Happy Easter!

1 Congrats on the new home purchase. The only thing that's more torturous than escrow is 9 months of pregnancy.

2 What's made the process more onerous than it really needs to be is dealing with all the extra bullshit involved in an FHA loan. It basically doubles the number of forms you have to sign. Otherwise, I can't say the purchasing process has been all that bad. It's all the secondary stuff like packing and arranging utility transfers that's been more trouble.

3 Ok, Will, when do we get to see the house? I'm getting antsy! Nothing like a nice drive to the edge of the earth

Speaking of which, how as the drive to work from home been?

4 I'm not in the house yet. Sellers move out this weekend, then I've got to get my stuff over and clean up the apartment. So I haven't had a chance to really test out my new commute. Unless you're actually referring to my current commute, in which case, it's a hell of a lot better than driving to the West Side.

1 So that would mean that Goku is gar?

2 Given what few bits of DBZ I've seen, I'd say yes. DBZ is way off most anime blogger's radar, but if it were coming out now, I think he would be classified as GAR.

3

Overall, I think this is a really interesting piece. Although I'm not sure where it applies when the lines between "heroes" and "villians" are much more blurred. It seems that the sheepdog/wolf analogy would rely on a hero who doesn't doubt what he's doing is virtuous, which would then mean that the character is inherently simple. Or at the very least is a fanatic. But a fanatic that the audience can agree is in the right.  

4

Well, I didn't mean to imply that the hero's thought process is necessarily as simple as that of a sheepdog. Kamina may be single-minded, but he's not simple. He has a dream all his own and pursues it with resolve, knowing that many others hope for the existence of the surface, but don't share his knowledge/faith in its existence. In our culture where individuality resonates, Kamina's behavior comes across as both virutous and righteous, while in his own culture, it was something to be shunned (until he proved himself right).

Simon isn't simple either. He's fighting the virtuous and righteous fight to defend Spiral beings from annihilation and to win back his woman from the Anti-Spirals. His judgement is somewhat questionable given that, in the face of the knowledge that continued use of Spiral Energy will induce the Spiral Nemsis, he fights on anyway banking on humanity somehow finding a way around it. It certainly won't happen in his lifetime, so it's not really his problem. But he's living is life by the mottos of the Gurren-dan. "Go beyond the impossible and kick reason to the curb."

Krelian from Xenogears would be an interesting case study. He's a goodguy who looses his way and goes bad, but never resorts to violence himself. Would Simon be GAR if he carried on the same fight from behind a desk like Rossiu?

Ultimately, I think it comes down to whether the character's actions eventually bring a "boon to all" (all being a relative term ) If they do, he's a hero and GAR. If not, he's a villain and simply a sociopath.

What I was really trying, and failed, to get at is that moe and GAR draw on and play against similar primal instincts in the viewer. On one side of the coin you have the passive protector in times of peace, and on the other you have the violent warrior/defender in times of strife.

Good grief... I should have just made another post. I'm not going back through that to check for typoes or coherence.

5 You're missing some of the elements of the essential nature of gar. ;p Keep in mind that the archetype is Archer.

One of those elements is self-confidence. Not mindless egotism, but the manly state of mind where the person knows his abilities and isn't daunted by tasks that fall within them, or potentially anything at all - but gar isn't compatible with stupid. If your character suicide-charges the enemy to buy everyone else time to get away, and he knew he was toast going in, and he's smiling when they bring him down, that's gar. Losing when you thought you had a chance is never gar.

The gar man doesn't question himself. He has a set of morals and an objective and doesn't flinch from them for a moment. If the rest of the world doesn't keep up, too bad for them.

Gar is not above a bit of grandstanding. Gar is better than those around him and knows it, and isn't going to apologize for it. But it's only gar if gar has the goods.

It's a post-modern state of mind, with at least a wink to the public figure that the character is cutting. The gar character is not above dropping a quip. Importantly, the truly gar character never explodes in rage. Think Kenshiro - he doesn't get mad, he just makes peoples' heads explode and moves on.

I don't think Goku is gar, really. He's slightly too simple - he's not acting cool because he's aware of the importance of being seen to act cool. He just doesn't care about cool (and, well, he can blow up planets, so he doesn't have to.) He also loses that cool, and while there's something to be said for erupting in white-hot hair-growing world-shattering fury, it's not gar.

Protecting someone has nothing to do with gar. Think Akagi - walking posterboard for gar, but he's never out for anything but his own thrill, and he makes no bones about it.

6

Well now it sounds like we're talking about several distinct strains (or maybe levels, hmm...) of GAR. IKnight layed out in part 1 (and expanded in part 2) that he thinks GAR is comparable to virtus, an admiration of a superior warrior in your cause. Which means it has a lot to do with the impression the character leaves on the viewer. Do I feel compelled to get up and stand along-side this character in their fight?

In the very act of standing up and fighting the fight, win-or-loose, you become GAR. If only just a little. Increasing levels of competence and self-confidence can add to your GAR. Even losing can still be GAR, if it's done with honor. As for Goku, I would submit that not giving a damn about cool and just going out to win is as GAR as all the bragadocio in the world. Maybe even more so. A competent man can brag about his abilities, but a master doesn't waste his breath. The truly GAR character goes about slaying his (and our) villians in the most efficient manner possible, gives them no quarter, and doesn't bother with quips.

And your assertion that GAR never looses it's cool flies in the face of hot-blooded characters everywhere. They go crazy right up until the bad guy bites it, then they immediately regain composure. A lot of my impression of GAR comes from the character Richard in The Sword of Truth novel series. He goes blows by cold-blooded, bypasses sarcastic, shoots through hot-blooded, and settles right into the region where white-hot rage becomes a fine-edged scalpel with only one mission, "cut." As a warrior for your cause, in all things, "cut."

As for the "protecting," don't get too caught up in the metaphor. The sheep that the sheepdog is protecting could be a myriad of causes or reasons to fight, as long as they are righteous and virtuous in the eyes of the viewer.

That's why I don't think of characters like Akagi as GAR. I hold no admiration for them at all.

I think I need to get into Excel and layout a spectrum or something...

7 Yeah. Uh, but that's not gar, just generic bushido. Those hot-blooded characters are not what we're talking about here.

(cue Shiraishi talking about tsunderes)

8 Hmm @ the linked essay. I agreed in part, but I can't imagine someone from my country writing it. When did America lose the Protestant assumption that saying anything good about oneself must inherently be wrong? Not that said assumption is a good thing . . . anyway . . .

I think the sheep - sheepdog - wolf metaphor neatly encapsulates the power relations I'm trying to establish regarding GAR and moe, yes. But I think in my conception of GAR there is less of a sense that protectiveness is a sine qua non. Hence Akagi can be admitted to be GAR - just as certain Romans were generally acknowledged bastards, but remained possessors of virtus (I must point out that /A/nonymous, not I, invented the virtus-to-GAR connection).

I lack the time to delve deeper, though I would point out to Avatar that, while we can begin with Archer, a lot of characters have been declared GAR since him, and each one has altered the concept a little. Archer is a good place to begin, but a bad place to end, as it were.

9

When did America lose the Protestant assumption that saying anything good about oneself must inherently be wrong?

How I answer that question depends entirely on whether you're asking the question in wonder or regret.

I'm beginning to regret using "protector" in the essay, because it's leading everyone to think I'm only talking about defensive action. I got a little closer to the mark in comment #6. For a character to be GAR he must fight for a cause that we find righteous and/or virtuous. I have to include the "or" because to do otherwise would leave out a lot of anti-heroes. Vengeance can be righteous but is rarely virtuous, and there a lot of GAR characters that live simply for venegeance of a wrong. (And if they just happen to beat the big-bad and save the world in the process, righteousness is an added bonus)

1 I think I'm gonna go back and properly resize these pics. Letting the browser do it looks like crap.

1

The art style in the second episode of Vandread really drifts a lot. It's common in this kind of show for the primary production house to farm out animation to other studios, and I think that episode was done by someone else.

Regardless, they didn't get any more work. The rest of the series the art style is quite consistent.

2 Didn't anybody ever tell you that putting shit on a credit card right before you close on a house = bad?

3

Good to hear. For a while I was wondering if the style change was intentional. It didn't have the feel of an homage to another style.

As for the card, I was being faceitous. My current balance is only a tiny fraction of the available credit.

4 Heh, you made me look up "tsundere."

5 It's a pretty useful term. Yandere is another good one.

1 I'm getting warmer. One of my kids is named Garren.

2

Any Simons or Kaminas in the family

Actually, where's Garren come from? Can't say I've heard that one before.

3 I actually think there's a teenage mutant ninja turtle with the name of garren. But I have a family name of Guerin so I just changed it up a bit.

4 You lose ten geek cred points. The TMNT's are Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo.

5 Garren Guerin. How old is this particular young one? While I know "unusual" names are less and less unusual these days, I can't help thinking the kid's gonna need therapy

6

You lose ten geek cred points

*sigh* I can't win.

How old is this particular young one?

hahaha, google it, there's like a gajillion garrens out there.

Oh that's right it's not mutant ninja, it's Kamen Rider Garren.

 

1

Those were hilarious!

You posted a couple comments on the other blogs I'm not sure if you posted it on mine or the hostages and when i tried to de-spam them I either deleted them or the got sucked into a blackhole somewhere.

2

Yeah, when I tried to post this to the comments at Hostages, it went into moderation, but wordpress didn't tell me that. So I tried posting the exact same thing a second time in case it was a fluke and just vanished into the ether. That time I got the "You've posted this already dumbass" message.

Then I thought maybe there was a keyword getting trapped in the filter, so I reworded things and tried a third time. All the while these comments are getting to the moderation que without me knowing. Now the comments are showing up at Hostages (on original submission order no less) after the de-spam. Must be something in the URL that was on the blacklist.

1

Ow, my brain.

2 I found that in the "related videos" after hitting "The Wedding Ring" link you put in Steven's comments.

3

Oh, no, I won't let you lay the blame at my feet.

4 Well the music certainly got my kids running to the computer, but I had to make them go away because I was unsure of the content. My kids are out of luck because I can't go thru 6 minutes of that to see if it's safe for them.

5 There's a little inuendo here and there, but otherwise nothing you can't explain away in kid logic.

6 Ha, well that's good. I spend a lot of time in kid logic land.

7 The fact that PattyAnn recognized Lucky Star when she saw it speaks to a deeper geekiness than she lets on.

8 *sniff* Well I had a crush on Speedracer when I was a kid, does that count?

9 No, because, while Speed Racer has been around in the US since the 60's (and there's a live-action movie coming out that I will not be seeing), Lucky Star hasn't been (legally) released in the US yet.  That kind if knowledge requires a bit more than a passing acquaintance with anime (or associating with people like me).

10

Damn, *sigh* I guess I'll just go back to my kind of geekdom and go lvl my night elf priest. *walks away with my head down*

11

Ok, I take it all back. You are definitely a geek, because for all the hobbies I have that qualify as "geek", I just can't bring myself to play any kind of MMORPG.

12 I couldn't get anymore off topic when I ask this question, but uh, what's the location of your header if you know? Arizona? Southern Utah? Mt. Baker, Washington?

13 All of the banner pics are from the Red Rocks area around Sedona, AZ. It's a neat place to visit.

14 Will, I have an advantage. My aunt's husband goes to Japan at least 3 times a year and he always brings stuff back to me. I've been watching all of it I can since the early 80s. Lucky Star was new to me. Speed Racer was a crush for me, too, PJ. *sigh*

15

Lucky you. I've wanted to go over there for quite some time. I applied for JET right after graduation, but regardless of what they may say, they're more interested in hiring Japanese majors than engineering majors.

Given a few years, I'm sure I'll have the cash reserves for a trip. It just sucks having to wait.

16 You know you're a lifer when you see the girls' "alternate costumes" at 1:39 and instantly recognize them as Shana from Shakugan no Shana, Rin from Fate/stay night, Mikuru from the Haruhi Suzumiya series, and Akari from To Heart.

17

Speed Racer was a crush for me, too, PJ. *sigh*

PattyAnn has good taste.

them as Shana from Shakugan no Shana

My name is Shauna and that's close enough. See I knew I was geek with or without WoW.

 

18

And if your hair turns red and starts emitting burning embers when you're ready to kick some ass, you're one step closer.

19 Well, when she gets mad her ass starts burning and emitting embers, so I'd say she's almost there. Will, I've never been to Japan, and I'd guess my uncle's been 30 times and he says going there will never get old. I hope we both get to visit someday.

20

Well, when she gets mad her ass starts burning and emitting embers, so I'd say she's almost there.

Don't they make a cream for that?

My dad was stationed in Okinawa long before he met my mom. Many years later, he picked up this book somewhere, and I found it in the bookcase when I was very young. Growing up in the Sonoran Desert, seeing amazing pictures of ancient shrines and cultivated gardens really gave me the itch to get over there and see some of those things with my own eyes. I easily see myself spending my time over there scouring the rural contryside looking for out-of-the-way shirines and everything but the craziness of urban Japan.

21 PA, knows me too well.

22

Don't they make a cream for that?

When I read that sentence it makes me say, there's a visine for that.

23

Gives a new meaning to "Gets the red out."

Oh, crap. I didn't just go there on my own blog did I? And here I was trying to keep the place respectable.

24

And here I was trying to keep the place respectable.

Sorry, that's what happens when The Hostages come over for a visit. We drink all the beer eat all the food and basically wreck the joint.

1 I accidentally didn't go cold turkey when I went cold turkey.  Who knew that Sunkist orange soda had caffine in it?  Anyway, it saved me from withdrawl symptoms... now to get rid of the last cigarettes...

2 It's at a point where you actually have to look for a caffeine-free label on things just to be sure. I've been using oj, milk and clear sodas as a substitute. Most root beers don't have caffeine, but wouldn't you know Barq's (the stuff I like) has caffeine put it in it.

3 You know, Josh and I have given up soda now. We weren't trying to quit caffeine (although I had mostly given up caffeine with the pregnancy) as much as we were trying to stay away from the nasty shit in diet soda (aspartame). When Josh quit drinking diet pepsi right before we got married, he ended up losing close to 25 pounds and all without actually reducing his caloric intake. I'm thinking diet soda is the devil.

Caffeine - well, I guess everything in moderation, right? There are studies showing that caffeine can help prevent Alzheimer's. All you will find in our house now-a-days is home brewed ice tea and water.

Oh, and for the record, you are far too straightedge

4

Well my little experiment didn't last long. I managed about a week before I ended up needing something out of the machine at work, and the only thing available was caffeinated. I haven't regressed completely though. I don't have any soda in the apartment either. Lemonade mix and milk is about it. On the other hand, I am back to my old ways when I'm outside.

5

Oh, and for the record, you are far too straightedge

Straight edge? I haven't heard that in a loong time. That brings back high school memories.

Nah, don't offer him any, he's a straight edger.

Sweet.

6 I've heard "straight-laced" pretty often, but I can't honestly say I've heard "straight-edged" yet. I guess it fits.

7

Straight edge is kind of an alternative term. They dressed  outside the norm, maybe rockabilly, goth, punk, or hippie, but didn't do drugs.

So they're on the edge, but straight laced.

1 So don't. There's plenty of reward in being the patient guy who doesn't tackle a show until it's been talked to death by everybody else - nobody says you have to be the one to break trail.

At the same time, keep in mind that a lot of that stuff is bread and butter for the Japanese fanboy that keeps these companies alive. It's always easier to write something conventional and try to sell it by putting in more of this, that, or the other. Bigger and bigger breasts, until you get Eiken. More and more maids, untill you get Hanayuko. Lolis everywhere, until you get Kodomo no Jikan. All three at once, until you get Gravion... Of course, the very element that they're counting on to draw in viewers has ruined the show well before you reach that point, but someone's buying this stuff...

It's okay to be a little snobby. I watched some Ninomiya-kun at the prompting of a friend, and honestly, there ain't no there THERE. Yes, yes, the girl is cute and busty yadda yadda. Gimme some story! And a good one, too.

That said, why do you feel the need to "justify" watching anime? Especially on "moral/legal" grounds? If you wanna watch a show, watch it, if you don't wanna watch it, don't. Just because you watch some Moyashimon or some Dennou Coil or Legend of the Galactic Heroes or whatever doesn't mean you have to wade in to the whole fan-service-laden genre. (That's left for slobs like me who need to know the references to work on other shows!)

2

What I mean is that, it seems like with each new season, anime gets closer and closer to what is (animated or not on this side of the Pacific) basically kiddie pron. It used to be easy to find shows that didn't feature busty koukousei and chuugakusei popping out of their clothes left and right. Now it's so common it's a cliche, and I personally am just not okay with that. I don't find panchira interesting in the slightest. Maids don't make me hot under the collar. Lolis are children.

I've got more respect for myself and respect for women (both real and fictional) than to put up with much more of it. I've been able to tune it out, for the most part, for quite a while. I've been able to enjoy shows that feature a lot of mindless fan-service by just ignoring it. But as the raunchiness and overall quantity of this crap keeps getting dialed up, it's getting harder to walk away from a show without feeling soiled.

I want to enjoy fanciful and imaginative shows that American TV writers are too dull to think up, but it's this arms race of immature shit being inserted into shows to appeal to pathetic emasculated Japanese males that's driving me away.

3 Heh, well, that's something I've noted. Focusing laser-like on the otaku audience is just driving people who aren't into the narrow fetish crowd away from anime - ironically, making them ever more dependent on the otaku, ever more desperate to out-do the last show.

I mean, hell, I've been working on Nanoha for a while now, and while it's still a good show, you can't really get away from the fact that, at some level, it's calculated to appeal to the pedophile. Yes, yes, they bothered to make it good anyway, and it's not so prevalent that it's impossible to ignore, but it's still there and it doesn't go away. (Also makes showing it to new people possibly awkward. ;p)

I don't know that things are necessarily worse, though. It's been pretty bad for a few years now, and it might just be that you've caught up with all the oldie-but-goodies and now the new stuff is where your new shows are coming from.

At the end of the day, most stuff is crap, Sturgeon's Law applies to anime too, and there's no helping it. But so what? It doesn't all have to be good. The shows that don't rely on panty shots for their plot development are out there, you hear about them, you watch them. We can sit around and say "damn, wouldn't it be cool if every show was cool and witty and didn't need to descend to perv-ville in order to get a viewer's interest," but it ain't happening. The good stuff that's out there, though, is still just as good. A bit of work to sift out the crummy shows, a bit of patience, and definitely don't make it your only hobby - erudite tastes in anime means you can't watch it 24/7, that's for sure. But what isn't like that?

Or maybe I'm just jaded. Tonight is the last of Nanoha A's. This weekend is Aika, which may not be a five-bladed razor of panty shots, but is at least four and a half blades plus gel strip. Next up is Lucky Star, which had the sexy fan-service exacted with a scalpel. It all pays the bills...

4

Yeah, it's a pedophilia arms-race, and I think a large part of my ire is driven by the fact that I can't share this stuff (and it's driving me off). I'm basically the "dealer" for our weekly anime nights, and when I start looking at the recent material, I can't honestly see any of the people in my group getting past the fan-service to the meat of a show. It's just too far beyond the lines of good taste.

Back in the Usagi, Sakura, and Pretty Sammy days, the amount of skin shown in a transformation sequence was pretty minimal. A quick flash of an innocuous bit of skin between outfits, and maybe a quick pan up. I started watching some of the Shugo Chara last night (picked it up based on word of mouth) that's been on my drive for a while, and the 5th grade protagonist flys around the screen stark-naked for 20-30 seconds in the middle of her sequence before putting some damned clothes on. For the studio it's win-win. They can pander to the otaku while also burning up screen time on something other than original frames and decent writing. For me, all that time was spent thinking, "Is this really necessary?"

And no, anime's isn't my only hobby, but it's the only one I currently get any chance to share with friends. I'm the only one in my circle that rides ATVs. Nobody else hunts. I don't want to spend money on MMORPGs. It's almost impossible to get anyone to go out shooting. I basically hibernate for the winter with anime, and I already dread what next winter is going to look like.

5 I recall from somewhere that a lot of the older, less-explicit transformation scenes were cleaned up from the Japanese originals. Pretty Sammy in particular jumped out at me as "edited for content".

They're definitely pushing the limits every season, though, the same way that the adult-video producers in Japan are using ever-more-precise mosaics to meet the letter of the law while showing more detail. Both markets are driven by their hard-core (coughcough) customer base, the ones who reliably spend money on DVDs and merchandise (even if the DVDs end up ripped and resold to Traders within a few days).

As for the "pedo" angle (using the word to cover both young teens and actual children, which seems to be the common meaning these days), it's not going to go away, unfortunately. Two things I saw in Japan convinced me: first, the fact that the "junior idol" DVD section at Traders was at least as large as the nearly-nude-adult-woman section; second, the fact that men's magazines like Bejean and Beppin School are considered tame newstand fare, and freely mix adult nude models with panty-flashing school-uniformed girls as young as thirteen. And you know they're thirteen, because the magazine comes right out and tells you.

-j

6

I'd be interested in seeing the editing information, if you can recall where it come from. Sammy was meant to be a mild satire of mahou shoujo, so going above and beyond what was the norm back then would make some sense. But that still doesn't mean it approaches anything like the nonsense showing up in more recent programs.

The rampant "pedo" side of Japanese culture is part of why my urge to visit the place has been waning. And it's also why I mentioned in the comments over at your place a greater desire to see rural Japan than the urban chaos of places like Akiba.

7 Ah, found it. The uncensored Pretty Sammy transformation is an easter egg on the region 1 DVD.

-j

8 I'll have to try that out when I get my DVD player set back up. It's been in a special caryying case I set up for traveling to friends' houses for anime night.

1 The image you're staring at is the inverse of the hue and saturation with all the brightness removed, and yes, the point is to induce a color after-image. Then they remove that and replace it with the B/W image, which effectively gets modified by the color after image from before.

2 Which means I could pretty easily do something similar on my own with Photoshop. I'll have to play around with it a bit later on tonight.