After my Cowon S9 mediaplayer’s power on/off switch broke several days ago I was forced to temporarily use my phone as a music player. This caused me to start to re-think from scratch what kind of music I’d love to have with me. It was then that I fondly remember listening to the .Hack//SIGN soundtrack for days on end; it truly is amazing to just listen to it whilst doing your daily activities. So quickly; that soundtrack found it’s way to my phone and with good reason. It would come as no surprise to me if you haven’t heard of this excellent Composer/Musician yet because to date Yuki Kajiura (still) doesn’t share the same household status that Yoko Kanno (Cowboy Bebop,Macross +,Escaflowne) enjoys at the moment. All the more reason to write a little bit about her wouldn’t you say ?

Kajiura has a very clearly distinctive sound, her trademark as you would call it. She’s very fond of succesfully combininig synth, opera, and French-flaired sound. Anime enthousiasts could first hear in Studio Bee-Train’s Noir (2001)
Despite the actual show itself receive alot of controversial critic, and in general being “meh” – everybody at the time agreed strongly on one positive effect; that being the breaktrough soundtrack.  Probably the strongest reason for this unprecidented combination of elements for the soundtrack could be lead to the fact that Kajiura greatly enjoyed the degree of artistic freedom that Mashimo as the series’ director offered her while collaborating on Noir, therefore their collaboration extended to many of his later projects, with the latest (as of 2007) being El Cazador de la Bruja. For example, Mashimo would never set any distinctive limitations or goals before her, allowing her to compose whatever she pleases. Afterwards, he would just take the samples he thought appropriate and insert it to whenever he wanted them to play.

After succesfully composing yet another fantastic soundtrack for Aquarian Age, Kajiura re-formed See-Saw; a former all female trio band that made it’s debut in 1992 which resulted in six singles and two albums before the break-up of the band. See-Saw was  consisting of Chiaki Ishikawa (lead vocals), herself (back-up vocals, keyboards), and Yukiko Nishioka. You may remember Chiaki Ishikawa from her impressive vocal work on Gundam 00’s ED song “Prototype” and if Bokurano’s brilliant OP song.
Backed up by her two See-Saw companions, they wrote and recorded what would in mid 2002 become the soundtrack for the .Hack//SIGN series which was yet another collaboration with Bee Train that started to enjoy mainstream success.

If you haven’t yet had a listen to anything she’s done in the anime’s or game’s she’s worked on (Granted that music aside; half or more are crappy anime productions themselves ) then by any means, please indulge on Youtube and enjoy some of the more original anime compositions you might’ve heard this decade !

The title is a joke, so put away your pitchforks fanboys.

I have never been a videogame system partisan. I have owned and enjoyed many systems made by many companies including a few obscure ones. I still own and occasionally use most of them. Of those consoles very few had outright failed on me. One was the Playstation 2, which developed a Disk read error from bad maintainance, and then later a  fatal mechanical issue. I bought a second but held a grudge against sony for years. Fortunately the quality of the Ps3 hardware closed that old wound. To me if you are going to sell a product for the kind of money a video console goes for it should be reliable. 

I have never been a Microsoft hater, in fact I relish making fun of my Mac loving friend whenever possible. I was a big fan of the first Xbox. I was the one who pressured a very reluctant Gwenster until he bought one (Had to do the same with the 360). I’ve enjoyed My 360… I’ve enjoyed Xbox live… notice the past tense here people. I Just had my second Red ring of death in 1.7 years and I am pissed.

It is absurd that a company can sell a machine for hundreds of dollars that cannot stay functioning for even one year. The fact is I am one of the lucky ones. People who put more demands on the hardware are often on their 3rd or 4th brick by now. Yes MS has gone to great lengths to smooth this over by extending the warranty. Yes I will be sending it in again. I can tell you this though I will not be buying any more multiplatform games for the Xbox 360. This machine deserves no loyalty whatsoever.

That ironic line spoken by the Otaking himself, in the prologue to Studio Gainax’s classic anime Otaku no video 1982: Graffiti of otaku generation, sums up my feelings as of late very well. Otaku, in particular anime otaku culture in Japan has become too influential lately, and it’s destroying the very medium that spawned it.

I have been a fan of Japanese animation since I first saw Battle of the planets (Kagaku Ninjatai Gatchaman) in 1979 on US TV, but it wasn’t till 1991 that I really got introduced to “fandom“. I started going to conventions and immersed myself in it. When I saw Otaku no video, I, like many eager young fans saw it as a celebration of the excitement and youthful enthusiasm we had for Japanese cartoons and comics. I adopted the title of otaku, blissfully ignorant to the negative connotation of the word in Japan.

Japanese Otaku are often pathologically obsessed with whatever their interest is (The word can apply to any hobby that is taken to an extreme). Being a geek is not a crime, loving something so much that people around you don’t understand it isn’t either. Things only become bad when groups of people begin getting together and start reinforcing bad habits and patting one another on the back. a sense of entitlement and justification rises up. when enough of this happens they begin to have influence. That is where we are at now in Japan.

Most shows that are created today lack the creative spark of shows produced in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. It’s gotten to the point where Anime studios in Japan are manufacturing series from the ground up to appeal to different vocal otaku subsets. Sometimes these “Manufactured” shows are good like Code Geass, sometimes they suffer badly for it, as with Macross Frontier.

DIE RANKA LEE, DIE AND BURN IN HELL

Which brings me to the Moe’ problem, and the wide acceptance of Lolicon (Lolita Complex). Ranka Lee is supposed to be 16, the same age as Lynn Minmay in the original Cho jiku yousai Macross series. While Minmay looked like a young woman, Ranka looks 12 at the oldest. This is very intentional. It is to appeal to pedophiles pure and simple.

She is also an example of a Moe’ character (at least through most of the series) That is basically a helpless usually VERY young female character that the audience of hopeless dorks will want to protect. This love of little girls exemplified in the Moe ideal is supposed to be non sexual, but I have known far too many fans who where almost exclusively into this crap… and what’s on their hard drives… to buy that.

If I sound angry it’s because I am. I take this and other characters such as the Zentradi character Klan very personally as a long time Macross fan.

ONE OF THESE THINGS IS NOT LIKE THE OTHER

Klan looks like a Lolita when Miclonized, and has Huge breasts when at her full Zentradi height, something that makes NO SENSE AT ALL in the Macross universe.Neither character design fits with the universe well, and only serve as wank material for 2 very different subsets of otaku culture. The thing is I kind of like the character of the mature Klan, she is pretty kick butt. I am not uptight about female characters being sexy (I love the Dirty Pair.) But This is just so blatant and unappealing, it turned me off what otherwise might have been a decent character.

So many other things about Macross Frontier where very good, but these cynical and shameless pandering elements almost completely ruined the show for me. I will write a full article on Macross Frontier in the near future. Hopefully it will be balanced, now that I have gotten out some of this vitriol.

The news isn’t all bad. There are still really good shows being made, but it is a very small percentage of the huge amount of mediocre to terrible shows being produced in Japan. I will talk about some of the good stuff soon.