| Fishing Manga! |
[09 May 2008|06:57pm] |
As some of you may already know, I've been collecting Uniqlo T-shirts which are being put out to celebrate Shonen Sunday's 50th anniversary. There is only one Uniqlo in all of North America, and the shirts are limited run, and only $16, and did I mention I can wear T-shirts to work? Classic manga combined with nicely designed, reasonably priced screen-printed T-shirts is a culmination of my two greatest weaknesses. The only thing more damning would be anime-themed whiskey in super-cute bottles.
This is how bad it is: On Monday I bought a Fishing Sanpei T-shirt.
That's right, fishing manga! What I love best about manga is the diversity of topics (absent from American comics), so the more ridiculous and more obscure the sub-genre the more I want to read it. I have a fine shelf at home of yo-yo manga, golf manga, mahjong manga, and manga about gourmet food and wine (two separate series, mind you).
( I can't seem to get this cut to work! )
</center>What's incredible about Fishing Sanpei (釣りキチ三平) is it's insane popularity. Frederick Schodt talks about it on the second page of his book, Manga Manga! The World of Japanese Comics.
Fishing-Crazy Sanpei (1973-1984) is 65 volumes long, and as of 1985 sold 19 million copies. Schodt compares it to Valley of the Dolls, the best selling novel in the world at the time, which sold 27 million copies between '66 to '83. (Schodt's book is from 1985.)
Tsurikichi Sanpei (Schodt translates it as "Fishing Crazy Sanpei") was adopted into an anime series beginning in 1980. The show ran for 109 episodes! There is an entry in ANN's database for the anime, but not the manga.
Recent cosplay?
I searched for more fishing titles and also found Tsuri Baka Nisshi, (釣りバカ日誌 ) "Diary of a Fishing Fool". I'm having trouble finding a volume count, but the Tsuri Baka Nisshi manga might be 72 volumes long! It was adapted into a 36 episode anime series in 2002, and apparently there have been two movies or possibly live action series. I'm not really sure, I'm having trouble making heads or tails of Japanese wikipedia.
    
I have like, zero interest in fishing, but I am very interested in fishing manga!
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| Cute Japanese Spam |
[08 May 2008|11:58pm] |
 I once ordered a DVD of Pan and James Genius Monkey Challenge!! from Amazon Japan, and now I occasionally get email telling me about other cute animal DVDs I might wish to purchase.
Check out this cat. I think they have prepared a miniature sake set so he will appear drunk!
Here's a link. Be sure to check out the other DVDs being suggested along the bottom.
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| The Kentucky Derby |
[08 May 2008|11:22am] |
The Kentucky Derby was pretty tragic. A filly named Eight Belles came in second, then collapsed with two broken ankles and was euthanized right there on the track. Keith (a Kentucky resident and derby enthusiast) said they used shoot them on the spot, which was unnerving. I had to look up why horses can't survive with broken legs. It reminded me of a movie I've never seen, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? from 1969.
Only three fillies have won the derby in 134 years (source: New York Times). Eight Belles was the first filly to run the Derby in nine years. She won five of her nine career starts in her short three year life. I'm pretty sure only three-year-old horses run the Derby.
Like many 12-year-old nerd girls with frizzy hair, I went through a phase about horses. I read nearly all the books in the Black Stallion series, all of which were total crap after the first one. My enthusiasm for horses manifested in a series of riding lessons and an obsession with the Kentucky Derby. In a junior high computer class we had to create a database (possibly in Lotus 1-2-3) so I created a database of Derby winners. On a family vacation to the south I forced my family to visit the Derby museum at Churchill Downs.
The Black Stallion never ran the Kentucky Derby in the book, but his daughter totally did in The Black Stallion's Filly. My favorite book from the series was the bizarre The Island Stallion Races, which had to introduce a sci-fi element in order to get the Black Stallion's rival off a desert island so they could race officially.
My enthusiasm for horses dwindled as I kind of realized I would never own one, and I kind of didn't ever want to own a horse. What gets me about my 12-13 year old obsession is the total innocence of it. I didn't know anything about gambling, for example. I didn't know anything about the infield parties, as described by Hunter S. Thompson.
No horse has won the Triple Crown since Affirmed in 1978. I'm super-annoyed, since I was born in 1979. I keep waiting for another horse to win it.
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| Various Types of Cake |
[08 May 2008|11:03am] |
On Saturday we went to Sakura Matsuri with our new blogger friends the Reverse Thieves. I brought some steamed chocolate bread, which I considered one type of cake. Then we went to this guy's Kentucky Derby party, where there were three more types of cake, including Monkey Bread. We got some text messages from Dave saying it was his birthday, so we went to the third Brooklyn neighborhood that day and there was another type of cake.
On Sunday, ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) ikyoto and thatphilguy brought over some cupcakes which were a test-run for competition. "You have to eat it in front of us," they said. N. and I dutifully reviewed the cupcakes.
On Monday, it was a coworker's birthday, so someone bought an ice cream cake from Dunkin' Donuts. After avoiding so much cake all weekend (I had the steamed kind and snuck some monkey bread) my resolve was totally broken. The stickk.com bet was over anyway. That is seriously a lot of cake in a short period of time!
The previous weekend was samgrrrl's wedding, where she had four types of cake from Cheeks Bakery which is near my apartment. I should mention that it was the best wedding I've probably ever attended. I knew at least 60% of the guests (ironically better than attending a family wedding), there was an open bar, delicious food, and it was five blocks from my apartment. There wasn't really dancing, which I always find awkward. The music was great and I got to hang out with awesome friends for like 12 hours. I wasn't a bridesmaid so it was also really cheap to attend.
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| So that Iron Man Movie... |
[02 May 2008|10:57pm] |
That new Iron Man movie is pretty good! My coworkers and I saw it during lunch (although not for free, but we did go to the Ziegfeld, which was nice).
I didn't know anything about Iron Man at all, and I don't normally like super hero stuff, but I found the film quite enjoyable. Things which are very clichéd in other Hollywood movies were believable in Iron Man.
Is it... the best comic book movie adaptation ever?! It might be, since it was so consistently good. The ending is especially succinct. Everyone's acting performances are dead-on!
In the yaoi doujin of the film I think it will be Tony Stark/Jim Rhodes... and there are more pairings to be had!
Plus the robot arms in the film were like Scutters in Red Dwarf!
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| Holy sh*t this podcast is awesome! |
[30 Apr 2008|03:20pm] |
Episode 12 "Steppe Stories" of Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast just totally blew my mind.
Due to some hideous mistake in my primary and secondary schools, I only really learned American history over and over again each year, and sometimes we covered some Geography. You know what's not very interesting and not very long? American history.
A lot of kids in class grades 1-12 would complain, "Why do we have to learn this?" but I never had a teacher who answered, "Because this is awesome!" I just learned a lot about Mongolia and it was totally awesome!
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| Disappearing People |
[25 Apr 2008|06:48pm] |
 I have been reading the Disappearance Diary today, which won the Tezuka Cultural Award, Japan Cartoonist Association Award, and was a Japan Media Arts Festival finalist (or award winner). The story is about a manga artist who one day says he's going out for cigarettes and then lives in the woods for two months.
Coincidentally, I ran across this story of an American Anime fan disappearing in/to Japan. At first I thought it was funny and clever, and kind of MegaTokyo-style, until I got to the bit about her parents finding a suicide note composed in an unsent email by the girl. I have high hopes that she was going to fake her own death and start a new life in Japan.
One of the commentors in the forum links to The Complete Disappearance Manuel, which I think sounds like a fun guide to living a Disappearance Diary life, but instead it's about suicide. D'oh!
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| Gonna be a long hot summer |
[24 Apr 2008|01:36pm] |
Good news everyone! My contract here got extended through the summer, so I won't need a new job until September.
Thank you thank you everyone who pitched in to get me Young Indiana Jones Chronicles DVDs! Instead of watching the new movie I can re-live 8th grade. (Between that and the new Dr. Who season, and working on TMNT, it is like 8th grade indeed!)
Today it is going to be 80 degrees, which is crazy, and means summer will be hot and dry this year. I keep forgetting that now that I'm thin hot weather is much less of a problem. None of my clothes fit anymore, it's pretty awesome.
I've been listening to Holst: The Planets while conforming storyboards. Since it's such a nice day, here is the inspiring song about Venus for your enjoyment. I hope it's not DRMed.
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| Nananana I hear it's my birthday |
[21 Apr 2008|01:17pm] |
I am totally exhausted from New York Comic Con, so I'm not doing anything tonight for my birthday. I was going to bring a cake to work from Cheeks bakery, but they're closed on Mondays, so maybe I'll order one for Wednesday instead.
I'm delaying any kind of party until I reach my goal weight (just three pounds away). Tomorrow I have another interview about stickk.com, for German television.
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| More Space Monkey News |
[10 Apr 2008|11:42am] |
New York Comic Con is rapidly approaching. What the hell is this: Space Monkeys!
Some to the Starz Media Booth (841) all convention long to pose for a picture with some real, live space chimps. We're serious.
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| Even A Monkey Can Draw Manga |
[08 Apr 2008|11:47am] |
 Sometime in 2000 I read the now out-of-print but still widely available on amazon Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga. At the time I had only read a few odd issues of Sailor Moon in pamphlet comic form, and the first volume of Mai the Psychic Girl, but I was taking in enough large doses of Toonami to get the gist of most of the jokes in EaMCDM.
Since 2005 I have been copious quantities of manga, mostly under the guise of being a reviewer of some sort. Late last year I began getting paid to write reviews of manga and anime. More and more, I come back to the useful information provided in EaMCDM. The book comprehensively lays out everything one needs to know about manga genres - recently, I have even been thinking of it as a book with useful life advice!
Click this image to view the whole page (warning, brief nudity):
You can view more sample images at shaenon's Overlooked Manga Festival entry on the book.
EaMCDM is the first manga I recommend whenever anyone asks for a recommendation. It's a must-read. I'm considering buying a bunch of the used copies and just giving them to people who I feel need to read it. It may also be the best how-to-draw-book ever, and the best parody, and as I touched on earlier, it's a guide to life.
Although the authors draw themselves nude from photocopied snapshots throughout the book, and it can be a bit hard to take. I mean, they're hairy guys.
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| Otakrraaaaap |
[07 Apr 2008|01:12pm] |
Also the Otakon Artists Alley sold out in just one day. I was hoping to buy a table this week. I don't really have any money anyway, because of taxes.
They might re-open registration at some unannounced time in the future - I hope that doesn't happen on a weekend, because I'd miss it again. There is no waitlist at this time.
I missed registering for Anime Boston this year, which sold out in 30 seconds or less - I failed to even arrange a shared table! Someone almost offered me a Sunday table and then backed out. I guess Artist Alleys have been selling out like crazy this year.
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| 1999 Election movie parody featuring Hillary Clinton |
[07 Apr 2008|08:22am] |
Oh good, I finally found it. I first heard about this video in the TED lecture about copyrights.
I didn't think it was going to be Obama, but now I'm starting to think it will be. In the age of television the best-looking candidate always wins... Does anyone reading this live in a swing state? What's the attitude around the other parts of the country? Because around here, I mostly see Obama pins.
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| Dad Reviews: 21 |
[31 Mar 2008|10:32am] |
Ever dream of going to Vegas and hitting it big? See this movie and get a few lessons.
Yes, that's what I mean. See it. At first I thought dad was talking about The Grand, which has Werner Herzog in it! But no, he was talking about 21 after all.
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| Moving Right Along |
[26 Mar 2008|12:08am] |
When we moved in here, we transferred a bunch of bills:
- Keyspan (gas)
- Time Warner (Cable)
- Verizon landline (canceled this)
- ConEd (electric)
Here are the things that went wrong:
- Keyspan - Decided we've lived here since August and owe them money
- Time Warner - Box stopped working after two weeks for unknown reasons
- Verizon landline - didn't acknowledge we canceled it
- ConEd (electric) - No problems... YET
Consequently my driver's license is about to expire. WTF? It was only good for four years...? In Michigan those puppies used to last like eight years or more if you were over 21. Gotta do my taxes... goddamn being an adult sucks.
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| Sometimes Daryl Sends Me These Links |
[21 Mar 2008|01:57pm] |
Apparently I have a vagina, since I enjoyed Juno, and I'm a loser since I like Scott Pilgrim:...Juno’s too fucking annoying to be fucked, and you know, Ellen Paige is attractive, and surely a good actress, cause I had never wanted to punch someone in my life so hard.
-- From "Juno-why I’m thankful to have a penis" at The World's Manliest Podcast Consequently I'm the whitest person Daryl knows according to this blog, Stuff White People Like. On the list, the stuff I like:Stuff I don't like:The blog is funny enough, with glib observations, like:
...white people will apologize without being asked.“Excuse me Dylan, you dropped a piece of paper in front of my desk.”
“Oh, sorry about that!”
It’s just that easy! Just point it out and they’ll apologize.
Unfortunately, I don't think the blog is universal to all white people, even if the title implies that it is - instead it's referring to a very specific socio-economic group of yuppie urban white people who shop for organic vegetables at the ffarmer's market in their gentrified neighborhood before eating breakfast and going to yoga with their Asian wife.
Rural white people (in terms of stereotypes) like owning pick-up trucks to carry around their multiple mixed breed dogs and taking potshots at stop signs. I'm just saying.
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| You bastards forgot my favorite space monkey! |
[13 Mar 2008|05:20pm] |
There's this new sci-fi blog, and today they have an article on space monkeys. BUT THEY FORGOT MY FAVORITE SPACE MONKEY, from episode 1F13 of the Simpsons:
Scientist: People, we're in danger of losing our funding. America isn't
interested in space exploration any more.
Assistant: Maybe we should finally tell them the big secret: that all
the chimps we sent into space came back super-intelligent.
Chimp: No, I don't think we'll be telling them _that_.
[Roller skates away, making monkey noises]
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| News that could save your soul!!! |
[10 Mar 2008|08:13pm] |
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All new deadly sins!!
- Environmental pollution
- Genetic manipulation
- Accumulating excessive wealth
- Inflicting poverty
- Drug trafficking and consumption
- Morally debatable experiments
- Violation of fundamental rights of human nature
I hope they make a sequel to Seven (sometimes spelled Se7en) starring Warren Buffet.
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