Alastor's Reflection

Holo and Nagisa Hijack the AMV Post!

Ξ June 22nd, 2012 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Music is Life, The Anime Annals |

I really should do one of these AMV posts a week just to keep “current” with what’s been posted on YouTube, and not get so far behind! A very nice crop of new vids has popped up on my radar, and I’d like to share a few of them before they get lost, deleted, or otherwise vaporized.

The other day I got sent to YT by someone totally unaware of what a time-sink that place is for me (OR WERE THEY), and sure enough, after I finished with theirs and before I could very quickly leave had glanced at the suggested videos and saw just one… I… hadn’t seen… before…

Hours later I finally extricated myself. (If one is ever freed from that place!) Not helping one bit at all, I’m about to share with you some of the better AMVs I’ve come across on my latest expedition. There were quite a few gems among the mundane stuff, running the gamut from rom-com to action to horror and back again. Unless not in that order. SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE (let’s hope)!

If possible, please watch them Full-Screen and in the highest quality your rig’ll run for maximum enjoyment. Also, if you’ve the time, check out the video-maker’s info for further credits, and visit animemusicvideos.org for The Real Thing(s). These aren’t necessarily the best, but what caught my fleeting eye…

Also, I’ll only post a vid if I dig the music. It might not be a song I’d buy, or even in “my genres”, but a good song is a good song, and if suited to its visual component, is just right enough

Let’s kick it off on an up-beat with “Make Us High” and yes, it will If you wanna dance, now’s your chance to shake your booty!

I dunno who that green-haired girl is, but I like her

So you think you can keep dancing? Okay, hereyago: The massively-talented Nostromo with “Auriga”…

Wow, his AMVs always leave me mindblown :-O (And another unknown cutie at 4:13-4:16; anyone know what anime she’s from?)

Two benefits of AMVs is that they introduce me not only to new music (for this out-of-touch music-junkie), but also turn me on to a great many shows and characters I’d not otherwise have seen. And this is healthy for the industry, so I’m glad to see more AMVs surviving on YT -And here *cough*

One show that I passed on for some reason was Okami-san and her Seven Companions (I need a break from typing those long-ass Japanese titles LOL) I think I might’ve viewed it as just another high-school problem-solver’s club show which is what it… is, actually. On Davecat‘s recent visit and our adventure in Japantown’s Kinokuniya store I came across a postcard handout featuring the cast of Okami-san, and something about the character designs (including wardrobe) appealed to me. And then I saw this AMV:

That sold me to at least check it out; AMV-mission accomplished! It looks like Studio JC Staff came with their top game, and as long as I can keep from those Okami-Taiga impressions it might prove to be a very funny series, although problem-solving type shows are usually episodic with not much of a central plot. That’s where thoughtful character development comes in, and as long as some characters progress, that can carry a series for a dozen episodes or so.

Okami’s voice actress, Shizuka Itou, has played a few memorable characters (Shana‘s Wilhelmina, Nagi in ef-a tale of melodies, and currently Koko Hetmatyar in Jormungand) and it’s fun to hear a new (and hopefully different) role from a talented seiyuu. Some of them have quite a range in pitch; Yukari Tamura comes immediately to mind. A short dramatic sampling of her Rika Furude from Higurashi no Naku koro ni:

Yikes. And that doesn’t even feature her lower register :-O But as for the Okami attraction, it might just be the resemblance to Toradora‘s Taiga. I expect that effect to diminish the more eps I get in; I dislike comparing shows, but sometimes it can’t be helped. The following Toradora AMV contains a few spoilers, but I like it for integrating a few lines from Taiga for effect. Her seiyuu, Rie Kugimiya (another big favorite), is another one who can really let it loose:

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RAY BRADBURY: He Lives Forever!

Ξ June 18th, 2012 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Creativity, Fine Arts Indeed, UNBOUND, BOUND, and my other creations |

Ray Bradbury passed away a few weeks ago, and I wanted to leave this little tribute in place to honor his memory and significant place in my life. I tend to forget about his influence upon my early reading years as they were largely taken up with the classics, thanks to my parents bringing me up in an environment populated with the Work of creative geniuses of nearly every stripe. I think I was led to him around age 13 through Poe and Verne, and possibly a credit on a “Twilight Zone” episode and/or the movie Moby Dick, depending when I saw them. In any case, we go way back!

My earliest recollection is from a pocketbook entitled The Autumn People, a compilation of Bradbury-penned short stories that were reprinted from E.C. Comics, who had run them in the early ’50s. Summertime in the ’6os was spent at our grandparents’ house in Boyes Hot Springs (near Sonoma), a town that at that time was very much like the small towns of Bradbury’s imagination. That book went with me everywhere that summer (and looks it, if memory serves me well)! After lights out I used to read it under the covers with a flashlight; I think my mom was not very keen on the book-that-is-actually-a-comic-book idea so I tried to ensure that it wasn’t “requisitioned” by keeping it well out of sight (but it did get taken away twice) LOL

It not only introduced me to Bradbury but to sequential art (aka “comic books”) as well. Where my earlier literary heroes had already stirred my soul and opened my young mind, Ray’s stories touched my heart, in his evocations of small town life, more-caring (and sometimes very cruel!) characters, singular plots, and emotions that ran very strong just beneath the story’s surface but were plain to read, feel, and see in the others around us. I love stuff like that, the deeper-felt the better (which partly explains my fascination with anime and other art-works). As hard-assed as everyone pretends to be in this cynical ugly age, we’re all just softies at heart xD

There was something else about Ray’s storytelling: his stories seemed real, his characters true and his fiction believable. He revealed to me what universal feelings were hidden in our common heart, and what menace and joy (everyday or otherworldly) may lie behind the illusion of a seemingly quiet, peaceful, uneventful life. That is, until Something Happens and puts all “normal” things in a very different light, the color and shape of which we hadn’t seen before.

He was the master of the short story. My first Bradbury book was Twice 22, which contained A Medicine for Melancholy and The Golden Apples of the Sun each featuring 22 bite-sized stories. From its first entry, “The Fog Horn”, a story about a dinosaur lured to the modern-day surface to respond to a sound like its kin, I was hooked. I liked dinosaurs anyway at that age, so it was an easy sell xD

Just the titles of some stories bring back fond recollections of reading them for the first time, like “The Flying Machine”, “The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind”, “Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed” (a fave all-time title), “The Golden Apples of the Sun”, and “I See You Never”.

He reminds me of why I enjoyed telling stories in the first place: to evoke that sense of wonder, almost childlike at times, at the wonderful (if a bit scary) world we live in. To see things a little differently so as to better cherish and share them. To touch, make contact with, and communicate with each other in ways that are unexpected, surprising, and rewarding. To sculpt characters we care about, and want to get to know. I think I’ve done this, and hope you’ll agree

During the writing of UNBOUND, I wanted absolutely no influences, elevated idols, even music, writing or anything else to come out in my work which I wanted as individualistic and different a story as a Reader is ever likely to read. Ironically, despite my high estimation, Ray never occurred to me in my embrace of the Shelleys, Milton, Cohen, and the like as their creations mingled with my own and who needed to be in the story, as it was “theirs”. Afterwards I stepped back and wondered about “my voice”, about what informed its more earthly point of view as opposed to its more ethereal and airy patois. I never recognized it until recently, in fact:  it’s downright Bradbury-an! But that may just be me

Hopefully in a few months you can see for yourselves; I’m trying to set things in motion

I had Creative Writing classes throughout high school, where we were encouraged to express ourselves much in the evocative way that Bradbury did. During the writing-time of UNBOUND I came across advisement that said NOT to do so if wishing to pass the Big Seven’s (publishers) muster. Apparently they are big on cookie-cutting. And muster-ing. And don’t want any of that “creative” writing nonsense in their Product. It wasn’t until the advent of self-publishing that the ability to write and publish in your own voice became possible, and if the big publishers don’t want to “take a chance” on us then we certainly will, and go for that golden ring

One of the most recent books I’ve been able to afford/buy has been Bradbury Stories, a huge compendium of one hundred of his best short stories. Most of them are very short and easily-digested, which is about all I can handle right now due to RL not lending itself well to reading. But the magic is still there, and it’s been fun reconnecting to someone I’d almost forgotten about. More, it reconnected me with a bit of myself I’d forgotten about as well! I want to tell stories like these…

“This is Bradbury at his very best – golden visions of tomorrow, poetic memories of yesterday, dark nightmares and glorious dreams – a grand celebration of humankind, God’s intricate yet poignantly fallible machineries of joy.” (from back flap of Bradbury Stories)

Thus the career of many a writer begins, oftentimes before he/she even knows it

Thanks for everything Ray. Mr. Electrico was right; you will live forever!