The Effect of Anime on the Brain

I am starting to come to the conclusion that anime affects the brain. Not in a bad way, mind you (although of course, that depends entirely on the anime in question), but in a way that makes strange things make sense.

Prime Example: Firefly.

Firefly was an amazing series. We're talking the Wild West with space ships. For those of you unfamiliar with this little piece of awesomeness, it was a short-lived Joss Whedon (of Buffy the Vampire fame) creation that aired on Fox in 2002, starring Nathan Fillion (now in Castle), Adam Baldwin, Jewel Staite, and Summer Glau (among others). While it was cancelled before it even finished airing all 14 episodes, it garnered enough fan support to make the follow-up movie Serenity a reality in 2005. It recently aired on The Science Channel as one of the best science fiction series ever.

Its early demise remained a mystery to me until I read the early critical reviews of it. They lead me to believe that general reactions went something like this:



Yeah. Apparently, the mad mix of sci-fi-Western-comedy-action-drama didn't sit well with some people, who felt they were an unholy concoction forced together via Whedon's insane genre alchemy. And yet, I never once gave it a second thought. The world of Firefly felt complete and whole to me, with nothing out of place and nothing forced or strained. I didn't care about some cliche metaphor about the final frontier and the Wild West. I just sat back and enjoyed the ride.

You see, by the time Firefly came along, I'd had a good five years of anime like Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star, Trigun and Gundam Wing to acclimate me to the idea of the space cowboys, rough-and-tumble frontier planets, and complex interplanetary politics. As for mixing genres, well, that's practically par for the course in anime and manga. Just ask Rumiko Takahashi or the CLAMP team. Mixing comedy, drama, romance, and political intrigue is pretty much commonplace, so I don't think anything of it when an American TV show gives it a try.

Anyway. This is what I get for watching old TV series and checking out their Wiki pages afterwards. But it does beg the question: DOES mixing genres like that still bother a lot of people, or has that changed in the past ten years?

Judging by some of the shows slated to air this fall, I may have an answer soon...

And Back Again!

So, 2011? So far, not a great year for my poor little blog. Or my comic, for that matter... but I'm back again!

Here's what I've been up to lately:

• Getting Strawberry Syrup back up and running. My readers had to sit through one heck of a long hiatus this year, but I finally buckled down and took my own advice to build up a buffer of pages before I ended the hiatus, so with any luck, they won't have to put up with another gap for quite some time.
• Working on a few new items for my Etsy shop. A few new boxes, a few new sketch journals... One out of four is currently listed, so those are slowly going up.
• Learning how to sew. My sister-in-law has been kind enough to show me how to use her spare machine, because we all know if I tried it on my own with no direction, it would end up imploding or catching on fire. In true Kit tradition, I'm not terribly interested in, oh, clothes. Nope, my thing is bags, pouches, and other items you can put things in. The fabric equivalent of boxes, if you will. Once I master the sewing machine (or, ya know, am reasonably capable of sewing a straight line), I plan on making little pouches with embroidery worth of hanging off any Renaissance Festival-goer's belt.
• Watching Blue Exorcist on Hulu. GREAT series. Right up my alley... especially considering I don't usually watch subbed. I was also watching Tiger and Bunny, but I need to catch up on that one. As for dubbed, it's all Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood on Cartoon Network. It's wrapping up, but it makes waiting a week between episodes sheer torture.

And that would be what I've been up to this summer. Hope your summers went well. ^^

Finding New Anime

Once upon a time, I used to find my new anime through magazines like Animerica (back when it was monthly... assuming it even exists anymore) or by sifting through the Anipike. Yes, this was back in the days of VHS, before YouTube existed and manga cost a hefty $15.99 a volume - never mind the limited selection of that - when finding a good series was like playing the lottery. I'd hunt down a promising-looking title, my brother would head to Media Play to buy it, and we'd cross our fingers and hope it wouldn't end up on our Shelf of Shame.

These days, I have other ways of finding anime. First of all, there's all that lovely manga now available for under $10 a volume. Generally, I'll check out the first 20 pages or so in the store, then buy it if it's still got my attention, and if I like it, I'll start checking out the anime.

Lately, however, I've found two great series another way: browsing the fan art on devArt. Now, just because one of the artists I watch falls in love with a series doesn't mean I'll bother to look into it, but when five, six, or seven of my watched deviants seem to be obsessed with something, I'll give it a try. In the past year, I've noticed a lot of fan art for Katekyo Hitman Reborn! showing up in my watchbox. I'd seen the manga in Borders, but when the back said it was about a mafioso assassin baby trying to teach a hapless kid how to become the next head of the mafia family, I pretty much put it right back on the shelf and moved on.

But then, I started seeing more and more of the fan art, the characters seemed really cool, and lots of people seemed to love this series. Not all series that fans get all rabid about are great, mind you - I don't really get Axis Powers Hetalia, for example - but when you see that many people getting into a series, it's worth checking out. So, I decided to give KHR a second chance... and now I absolutely love it. Sure, there was a major lag when the author decided to spend so much time on a character I absolutely hated, but she's since moved on from her obsession with her own personal Scrappy, moving into a completely awesome story arc. Be forewarned: KHR starts out as an episodic little comedy, but there is, in fact, character development going on, and the real story kicks in around Volume 8. It's even better in the anime - they cut the character that nearly ruined the series for me out entirely.

Yesterday, however, I came across a single piece of fan art - one solitary little piece - and found it so intriguing that I just had to look into it more. What was so intriguing? A character's name. I just had to see the guy named Frau.

Enter my descent into 07-Ghost (Frau, by the way, would be the blond guy on the cover there). Since yesterday, I've watched the entire first season (subbed, even!) and am planning an expedition to the book store to hunt down the manga. There's action, great characters, beautiful artwork (in the anime, at least - haven't gotten my hands on the manga yet), and a story that kept me interested through 25 episodes. It's high on drama, but like all my favorite series, it's got enough humor in it to keep it from getting too heavy.

Right this second, there would be no better news to me than hearing that 07-Ghost is being dubbed by a good company with fantastic voice actors. That would be amazing, but for now, I'll settle for getting my hands on the manga.

No idea when I'll stumble across a new treasure, but that's part of what makes it fun - and besides, helps keep the cost down if it takes awhile between each new find. Life's sometimes considerate like that. :D