Keith Palmer's Multi-Purpose Journal

Although I keep bringing it up, “only reading manga after I’ve seen the anime adapted from it” isn’t quite a hard-and-fast rule for me. I might even have started to wonder a little if that rule formed about two decades ago, even if I can then wonder if daring to bring up “to me, anime from the ‘early digital production era’ now looks a bit less impressive in general than recent anime” would bring up complaints from those ready to find faults in something approaching all recent anime and assign blame to big companies.
( Dressed up, eventually )

The hobby shop a long walk down the road from me where I bought a flying model rocket last year contains plenty of other model kits. It shouldn’t be a surprise in this day and age that those kits include “science fiction robots,” and of course a good number of those particular kits are Mobile Suits from Gundam. I had started seeing those kits in other hobby stores years before without this shaking my conviction that my days assembling model kits were now decades in the past. In this store, though, I did notice a particular kit I’ve seen enough about “Gunpla” to understand as a no-tools, no-paint, no-stickers, no-glue endeavour perhaps suitable for the rust-caked returner too. It was also the Strike Gundam from Gundam Seed, and perhaps a sense of defiance in the face of general fan judgement nudged me towards buying it. Of course, defiance can be foolish.
( Plastic fantastic )

Having kept watching anime for as long as I have sometimes still provokes trying to explain that, if only to myself. I’ve supposed not watching as many “new” series as I could might help evade becoming jaded and annoyed by “sameness,” although I’m not anywhere as selective and discerning as some people. As for also watching titles years or decades old, there are at least a few names out there I’ve let remain gaps in my knowledge.

As a result of that, one reaction following the first jolt at the news of the death of the manga artist Akira Toriyama was the awareness I’ve never taken more than the briefest of glances at his Dragon Ball manga or anime. I can’t be so grandiose as to claim I’m the only fan with that blind spot, but I was conscious of all of the people who’ve commented about Dragon Ball being a gateway title for them, and of comments the series is something more than just that, too. There’s at least the impression the anime showed up over here on the final borderline of “localizations becoming acceptable to many established fans,” but just perhaps that meant it not quite registering on me right away. I’m at least conscious that “lengthy shonen action series” are something I don’t dip into very often, but again some of the things I take in instead aren’t a sign of refined tastes. Aware Toriyama’s career encompassed more than Dragon Ball, I do wonder if other things he worked on have caught my attention a little more; at the same time, I’m aware they haven’t got to the point of trying to seek them out.

Checking Satellite News a few days ago, I noticed an item that the latest release from Rifftrax involved an animated Little Mermaid movie; not the animated Little Mermaid movie, of course, but an older film acknowledged as having been animated in Japan. I thought a bit of how I’d dared myself to chance Rifftrax at last when they’d taken on something that was part live-action Japanese special effects, part Japanese animation, but also a bit of how I hadn’t gone on from there to see if any of their other feature-length “riffs” also refrained from what I’d react to as “cheap shots at specific familiar targets” (and others might react to me with “good grief, he’s still dwelling on that.”)
( Thinking ahead in any case )

Time has passed since the announcement certain anime-releasing companies would bring Blu-Rays of considerable parts of the Macross franchise over here. This isn’t quite the same sort of wait as for other anime releases, and other fans have slid back to complaining. Sony having bought Right Stuf, whose production arm Nozomi had been connected to the longest and latest series, has had a lot of dark aspersions cast on it. It might have been a matter of seeking distractions from that to pick up on the tidbits that AnimEigo was preparing to launch a crowdfunding Kickstarter to release Macross II. With that, I just might have found a certain peculiar amusement in this matter of priority involving a company that’s survived despite (or because of) not having ranked among major players since the twentieth century and a title that’s been pretty far down on the collective list of franchise favourites for even longer.
( Before I knew about that, though... )

Fishing flyers out of my mailbox today, in noticing a promotion for Halloween costumes I recognized it showed someone in a Naruto costume. That got my attention; what might have pushed things a bit further was recognizing two more people in the cover picture in costumes from Demon Slayer, which hasn’t been around for as long. (The Nezuko didn’t have the chunk of bamboo in her mouth; that accessory was visible, though.) It was something to realise it still gets to me when I notice some new hint that “more people recognize anime than you might think.”

At the same time, aware of the continued wailings over the Right Stuf online anime store having been shut down to redirect commerce to Crunchyroll, I am conscious of the tension between “surely everyone would like what I like! (or that’ll help prove my taste is valid and I’m not wasting my time)” and “I’m better than everyone else for not following the crowd; when something gets popular, it’s spoiled.” I also got to recalling impressions that those dedicated to “cosplay” make their costumes themselves (or at least get them produced in artisan fashion), but as I’ve admitted before, I’m just not as into that as a lot of other people are.

Through some stroke of luck I managed to see notices the “Anime Lockdown” “online convention” would be putting on another streaming presentation. Things have changed since the first of them or even the one a year later (although I’m very conscious of certain continued warnings things haven’t changed as much as a lot of people have shrugged themselves to the point of supposing, and certain insistences precautions can and should be taken at the conventions that are being held in person again). With the whole personal wrinkle of not having scraped together the courage and/or motivation to make a day trip to an area anime convention until 2019, though, I suppose I can think “watching panels via video streaming is both healthier and more convenient.” I saved a schedule and a link and counted the days to the one-day presentation.
( Four panels with a certain focus )

Noticing a news item one of the people who provide the character voices in the Love Live franchise would be stepping down from the role for health reasons got my attention, but I have to admit I had to look into the full article to see what character Tomori Kusunoki was the voice for. As ever, that ties into my uncertain feelings about “not having developed the same interest in Japanese ‘live action’ as certain commercial drawings from that country.” On checking out the article discussion, I saw some of the first comments involved “Setsuna is my favourite character in her subfranchise,” which reminded me I don’t put a lot of effort into ranking personal favourites among the considerable cast of singing “school idols” in the franchise, preferring to “try and like everyone well enough; maybe that’ll keep me from seeming too interested in them...” The only thing that might get in the way of my being just fine with Setsuna’s character, anyway, is her being presented as “an enthusiastic anime and manga fan”; maybe in this case “a drawn character being a fan of drawings” seems a little too inward-turning, or just “too good to be true,” for me.

In any case, I’m aware of “diminishment for some diminishes us all.” The item suggested Setsuna would be recast, although I have to admit to the thought there are still eleven school idols left in Nijigasaki and even the thought “I could find something else to get interested in.”

When Denpa announced they would translate and release a manga presenting “the true (yet comedically skewed) story of the making of Gundam,” that got my attention. I have to admit part of the reason there was because I’d read a “scanlation” of that very manga a while ago. It had been interesting and amusing, but recollections of that fan translation having the stilted and awkward flavour I get from a good number of such far from upright versions had me as glad as ever to have the chance to make up some, but not all, of my karma. With the way volumes of Denpa’s “Inside Mari” release took a long time to become available for purchase, though, I also have to admit to certain thoughts there’d be no resting easy until a copy of what was now titled “The Men Who Created Gundam” was in my hands.
( The New Anime Century is declared )

Taking another look at an anime weblog that makes regular updates to its sidebar of links to “Posts I Like,” I was surprised to be pointed to a piece by someone taking a less than nostalgic look back at working in a Target store in Canada. Every so often I do still reflect on having lived on the same city block as a small shopping mall that had housed a Target for the brief span of that chain’s operation up here. My impressions of that store weren’t as dire as the piece’s, but maybe I’m not confronting my neighbourhood and community the way the writer had to. The mall itself was torn down a few years later except for its grocery store (the last of the businesses in it moved across the parking lot into an old Sears furniture and appliance store redeveloped into several units, and some of the vacated space now houses a big two-story storage facility). The piece opening with a retrospective on Zellers, though, did leave me thinking of my own somewhat better memories of that previously vanished retailer (and the Coles bookstore and even a few other stores that had once been in the mall). A mention of Giant Tiger does remind me there’s one of those stores a little further away from me, although my own thoughts are that it’s not as big or as nice as even Zellers was.

As for the juxtaposition that had caught my eye in the first place, although I can think of a reason or two for the weblog’s owner to have happened on the piece I did have my thoughts turn back to the acquisition of the online anime store Right Stuf by Crunchyroll (and, by corporate extension, Sony). I can get the whole point of so many others reacting with “change is bad.” One part of me has pondered “competition in business” and whether “competition” in general means “someone wins in the end”; this may not be as celebrated here as in sports. I have in the past week, though, managed to confront the previous declaration of Right Stuf that they just couldn’t afford to offer free shipping up here any more by going through a company that offers to bring packages across the border; everything actually worked out there even if I might not be as clear as I could be on what Right Stuf itself would actually have charged for an order too small to qualify for free shipping. In the years since I started ordering from the store (a few years after I’d first heard about it) just to get the box for some “compilation movie” DVDs with all the criticisms attached to them, I’ve piled up anime faster than I can watch it on thin whims for the sake of skipping shipping charges. That’s a change that probably doesn’t outweigh all the worries churned up, but it is a change.