Rants & Raves

Something I've come across quite frequently in anime fandom nowadays is what I consider "anime fan guilt", wherein a fan of anime, so insecure over the fact that he is a fan of foreign cartoons, completely overcompensates by condemning Japanese things. It's an interesting phenomenon that at first I was unable to grasp, as I thought at first that it was legitimate criticism of the Japanese culture given by people who were otherwise fans of their animation, reasonable people who liked anime, but weren't into all things Japanese. However, I soon discovered that this wasn't the case. This "criticism" became more and more pronounced as I dove deeper into the anime fandom. It became, in short, a parody of itself. Now, I'm sure that we've all run into people who take their anime fandom a little too seriously. I mean, more than I do.

With the Audio:English series, PenguinTruth takes a critical look at the English
dubs which grace some of anime's most defining series in North America.


There isn't a group of animated programs that dominate the world of entertainment for me quite as much as the Gundam franchise. What started as a passing interest in Gundam Wing's hamfisted philosophical debates and cool mecha evolved into an obsession, much as man is meant to evolve into the Newtype. (Or maybe not. Don't even ask Yoshiyuki Tomino about that one. He doesn't know.) What are essentially elaborate (some more than others) robot toy commercials have so my anime fandom that I've forgotten what life was like before Gundam. Did I dream? Did I breathe? Now I have several DVDs of Gundam material and a mind filled with useless trivia. And I'm not even the biggest Gundam geek. I'll save that honor for the guys who can give you the exact specs of the engines of a Zaku II.

I just watched the first fourteen minutes of Gundam Unicorn's second episode. The first time I watched it, it was RAW, so I couldn't understand much of what the characters were saying. I had to judge some of the interactions based on body language. But then the English dub version came out.

Well, first, the production values are as amazing as the first episode's. The art is excellent, the animation is pretty fluid, especially some of the more subtle gestures of the characters while they're in conversation. Nobody seems to just be standing motionless for no apparent reason. The coloring is such that it looks fairly natural for a show about colorful giant robots. In other words, the shading isn't off and nothing looks too shiny and fake. The music is atmospheric.

"If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen!"
I notice certain people dropping out of the Gundam fandom recently because, as they put it, it's become one big shitstorm session. UC fans railing against AU fans, AU fans railing against UC fans. People refusing to give new Gundam shows any credit. People saying the old ones are outdated. Shippers raging over their OTPs not being recognized by canon. I understand. It can get a little tough to be a Gundam fan sometime. So some people quit.

But you know what? They're pussies. All of them. Anyone who's quit the fandom is a pussy. Fuck them. They're whiny attention whores who think they're making some big statement by depriving the fandom of their continued support.
Stay with me on this one.

"I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR THEORY ON HOW REBUILD IS A SEQUEL!"

　
I love Neon Genesis Evangelion. But it's a polarizing show. Some people think it's brilliant, some think it's trash. Some people think it's brilliant for the wrong reasons. Some people don't pick up on why it's good because they feel betrayed by it not being what they originally thought it was and miss its real complexities. But, for whatever reason, pretty much any discussion you're going to encounter about Evangelion, pretty much any message board thread and the like, is going to go the same way. And this is why I avoid discussing Evangelion most of the time. Not because I'm afraid of debating it, but because it's such a pointless excercise at this point.

In the frosty North, near Yunzabit Heights, lies a mystical, magical land called Vancouver, where exists a studio called Ocean Productions where they localize foreign cartoons. Once upon a time, these wooly Canucks lumbered into the studio to produce an English-language dub for a show called Dragon Ball Z.  The dub was contracted to them by licensor Funimation in the big American state called Texas, where the steaks are so big, they block out the sun. They dubbed the first two "seasons" of the show under Funimation's guidance, and miscelleneous later episodes on their own.

The last month heralded a change in how I get my news. The warning signs were there yet I didn't see it coming. The decline in revenue across the news industry, the expansion of independent 'Mom & Pop' bloggers, and even promotional stories detailing evens to come. Thanks to the senseless actions of hackers operating from the inside two sites have ceased to exist as we knew them, Digg.com and News8.net. Both Digg and News8 meant a lot to my daily digital routine. Throughout the day I would visit each site to discover world happenings ranging from local to international events. While not all the news on these sites interested me specifically there was more than enough to quash celebrity gossip and yet another stolen picture with the words "FAIL" paste upon it, almost ironically. News8.net was the website run by Washington DC's 'News Channel 8,' a subsidiary of the local ABC affiliate.