Tobe Gundam

Recently, I found that it is possible to get overwhelming nostalgia from things I am not too familiar with. I got it from listening Tobe Gundam in Operation British. I have listened to Tobe Gundam before this, but I thought it was ridiculous and I did not like it. It was listen-once-and-forget-about-it. After a while, though, I happened to hear the song and found it nostalgic. I still think it sounds outdated, but now I can enjoy the song and sometimes (when I'm in the appropriate mood) get teary eyed a little.

I also had a similar experience with the song Shine in the Storm (also in Operation British), but it is less surprising because I watched Gundam 08th MS Team, the series that has the song as opening.

Still, I think there is something about the musical style in Tobe Gundam that reminds me of my childhood (when anime was still infinitely cool).

Cast Off! K-On!

Just a few days ago I realized dreadfully that I was getting shallow. Recent show I watched are painfully light and perhaps shallow, but I found them very entertaining for multiple reasons.

First, I watch Kamen Rider Kabuto. To me, recent Kamen Rider titles are fun because of their gimmicks: costume design, fighting choreography (usually for climactic moments), and the Rider powers (cheap special effects that are fun to watch). With Kamen Rider Kabuto, I enjoyed Kabuto design. I also love the concept of "Cast Off", where a Rider takes off his heavy armor to reveal a slimmer form, and "Clock Up", essentially a mode in which the Riders and the monsters move very fast. I think I accepted that Kamen Rider is half comedy while watching Kabuto.

I was disappointed by the later part of the series, though. I usually enjoy the powered-up form a series introduce mid-way. But Kabuto's "Hyper Form" is just too powerful and poorly executed. It could have turned the series even more fun, but it didn't (it turned the series worse, in my opinion).

Still, I love that voice, "Cast Off! Change Beetle."

Next, I watched K-On! It's very light-hearted and, as Anime World Order may put it, nothing really happened. But it reminded me of high school days. With that weird (to me) notion of friendship.
I personally keep only a few friends I am (relatively) close with and hang out with them often. The way things worked, one way or another people move on and these friends keep changing. That is to say, friend who used to be close usually drift further and I accept this a fact of life.
So, the notion of making really close friends in high school, which I guess what I did, only reminds me of the next thing awaiting in the corner: U-U-U-University. Where people are very likely to go on their separate ways. It was when transitioning to university that I realized that in real life, people prioritize on what they want to do, not friendship. It sounds terrible, but that's fast of life for me. Maybe that's why I don't keep very close friends anymore.

Anyway, watching K-On! was a so-happy-and-nostalgic-that-it-hurts-a-little for me.

But these on their own did not trigger the said realization above. It was when I started watching Baccano! that I realized I was having trouble watching somewhat complex story. I remembered I used to look for this kind of stories in anime. Compare it to the kind of shows that I watch now. Maybe I'm too comfortable in my comfort zone?

Anyway, I'm still continuing inside my comfort zone with Kamen Ride D-D-D-Decade!

I Remember Love

After listening to Anime World Order's review of Macross Do You Remember Love (DYRL), I decided to watch the film (the review is practically a love letter to the film). Before watching, my memory of Macross is Hikaru/Rick in his cockpit, taking off (I think the scene is in Robotech intro). I also vaguely remember that it is about humanity's hopeless battle for survival against an overwhelmingly more advanced alien force (the Zentradi).

I think DYRL is meant to be a film for Macross fans who had watched the whole series to reminiscent about what they like from the series. As a stand alone film, it's not great. Things just happen and there is not much explanation. I could barely follow because I know the basic premise of Macross. Still, I can understand why Mr Surat (of Anime World Order) described this film as everything he remembered about 80s anime. Watching it gave me a kind of nostalgia and the main theme song, Ai Obote Imasu Ka (Do You Remember Love?) reminded me of 80s love songs I used to (involuntarily) listen to in my childhood.

My opinion is that DYRL is the film to watch if you want to know what started the whole Macross franchise without going through a long anime (36 episodes). The downside is that the film does not have time to elaborate the things that make Macross so wonderful.

Related to that, I finished watching Macross Frontier a few weeks back. It's a crappy show that looks good, IMO. The backgrounds are pretty, the characters are good looking; but the battles are messy (I don't remember any battle scene that managed to grip me) and the story is practically non-existent. The one thing that's great about the anime is the music.

Finally, I just noticed that Minmay has a drill hair. Wow. So we had drill hair even back then in 1984?

Please Set My Attribute

I just found out (probably a few years later than everyone else) that Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) does not seem to implement the functions getAttribute() and setAttribute() correctly. I was not too upset, though, because there is a quick work around: using the functions getAttributeNode() & setAttributeNode() instead.

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Another thing I just found out is this neat thing called "Itano Circus". It is a style to present a battle scene in a dramatic manner using patterns formed by lines. A line can be a it missile trail, a bullet trail, or even energy trail. Apparently, the style was pioneered by Ichiro Itano. Here is a video to describe how it looks.

I personally think it is a generalized form of Macross Missile Massacre.

Only Tourism

Only today I watched Only Yesterday and I already made up my mind to tell people tomorrow that I watched Only Yesterday only yesterday.

So yeah, I just watched Only Yesterday (Omoide Poro Poro). I think I like the film/anime because I am one of those people who work in an office setting where they do the same thing everyday and wish for something different.
The one thing I found interesting is that the film touched this particular topic. The city person in me thinks that farming life in the village is idyllic, nice, beautiful, etc. I come to this conclusion because I go to such village setting for holidays (which means limited period of stay, no need to earn a living, probably I'll eat the best food all the time, and novelty factor is still in effect). If I try to use a different mind set, say I live in the village permanently and need to make a living out of farming (which means unlimited period of stay, a must to work, eating not-so-nice food to minimize spending, and basically doing the same things everyday), HEY! Suddenly farming life is not so attractive.

This thought came to me when I visited Tomi and went to his hometown. It's interesting that since then I kept encountering this thought in different versions; Only Yesterday was one such encounters.

Oh, the film also made me think how to think of dividing with fraction (for example, 1/3 : 1/4) intuitively. I could not come with a direct way; my indirect way is to think of "dividing by 4" as "multiplying with 1/4", thus "dividing by 1/4" is like "multiplying by 4". Do you see the pattern, Taeko-san?
(Yes, this film also has mathematics! And drama! And sports! Even downhill driving!!! (Though admittedly there was no drifting nor tofu...) Oh, it also has pineapple. That's ananas in Finnish! (Okay, I should stop typing random things now.))

A New Finding

I've been listening to Anime World Order podcast. They are very informative. For example, I just know that Patlabor stands for "Patrol(ing) Labor". After 20 years, I finally know!