My hobbies, part 1 [Japanese Animation, or as the ‘cool’ kids call it, ‘Anime’]
One of my biggest hobbies has been collecting, watching, and translating Japanese animation. Yes, I know, it’s “anime”. That’s an argument I’ll get into another time.
I should rewind a bit. I have always loved animation in general. From animated drawings to claymation/stop-animation to 3D work, it has always facinated me. I remember growing up on Bugs Bunny cartoons (my favorite “anime” of all time) and Tom and Jerry. Then, one day I got a tape from my mom. It was dubbed in Korean, and it was… different. The animation was smoother, the “story” from what I could tell, was deeper, and the characters were more interesting. Granted, I made a lot of it up in my head, since it was in Korean.
I forget what show it was, exactly, but I do remember thinking, “hey, this is really neat”. It wasn’t until years later that I learned that it was a Japanese cartoon. By then, I had watched several shows off of tapes from a penpal in addition to Robotech, Voltron, and Star Blazers. I was still watching American shows (and still do today), but I well and truly a fan of Japanese animation.
Since then, my tastes have changed quite a bit. I started off as a big comedy and mecha fan. I was big into Gundam (still am, for the most part), Macross and Mospeda, Ranma, and a lot of other shows. I didn’t have much of a taste for the more serious shows and movies.
Then my tastes shifted… towards more dramatic/less slapstick fare, like Maison Ikkoku (yes, a comedy, but one without giant hammers) and “girls” (shoujo - never forget the ‘u’) shows. I started watching a lot of majokko (magical girl) shows from the early eighties, and found them to be a lot more serious than some of the mecha shows I had watched.
These days, I watch a very mixed bag of shows. I’ve enjoyed The Meloncholy of Suzumiya Haruhi, I liked the Gundam Seed series, and found myself laughing out loud at the antics in Pani Poni Dash. I don’t watch as much as I used to, partially because of time, partially because I’ve translated some shows. There’s nothing like doing your hobby as your job to kill your taste for it.
This is hardly all I have to say on anime… I just want to save material for later.
January 20th, 2007 at 12:21 am
Admitingly I didn’t really get into it until the CN craze back then, although I had watched some old stuff before a long time ago but never really understood or thought about it. At first all I watched was what came on TV, hence starting Gundam with Wing. When digital fansubbing came into the light there around 01-02, thats when I really started stepping outside of the TV and onto the intraweb, vastly expanding the shows and genres I saw. Nadesico is what started all of that, and the rest is a train wreck.
Haruhi is pretty much how I see Monty Python, it’s genius comedy that you have to sort of just take “as is” in order to find it funny. The out of order to episodes, the cast, everything was just random, and I love random.
SEED still remains one of my favorite Gundams aside from X. They did a good job on the story and characters, although they really let it go with Destiny.
Pani Poni Dash is friggin’ hillarious. The number of spoofs, puns, and references is absolutely hillarious “of the year” maho. Oh man.
January 24th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Delta: Seed is not my favorite, but I’m fond of it, and I love the mech designs.
Frighteningly, I’m really digging Getsumen Toheiki Miina.