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kamomesan

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Everything posted by kamomesan

  1. I rediscovered this Baki x Nissin ad recently. Pretty interesting that in the other commercials the kitsune only has a single tail but the Yujiro one has nine tails.
  2. Welcome to the forums! We are certainly a place with some nostalgia for anime
  3. Yo happy belated birthday @efaardvark !!!
  4. Welcome to the forums! Good luck with your studies and hope you share some cool anime with us all
  5. I mean not a lot of people know the mythology behind other cultures. I doubt a lot of Japanese understand or care about the Jewish significance of the golem despite it being a relatively common enemy in JRPGs. Mythological creatures are such a broad topic that sometimes its difficult to tell what is the contemporary creator's imagination and what isn't. I find that particularly to be the case with Ghibli films. Is there some giant-bug beast the Ohm are based on, or did Miyazaki just think it'd be cool to have giant bugs?
  6. Woooo the forum hit 100k total posts! Congrats!

    Screenshot from 2023-09-11 18-09-30.png

    1. Animedragon

      Animedragon

      That's an impressive total, and we've all had a part in reaching it.

  7. Welcome to the forums! I hope it wasn't too long of a bike slide over here all the way from Scotland.
  8. Technically Journey to the West is Chinese mythology, but I love the folksy feeling that those influences bring to the the original Dragonball. Pokemon also has a lot of references to yokai, kami and Shinto, even though it originated from a fascination with collecting bugs. And speaking of bugs, Mushishi. There's all sorts of folk mythology that inspires the the creatures Ginko handles, though I don't recall any off the top of my head based off of the more famous myths.
  9. Shelter certain has a lot more defined plot to the video and was a great recommendation to someone who had never seen it. The buzz around Colors is mostly the appealing visuals, but there is some sort of abstract and ambiguous story there too
  10. There is a much memed anime clip going around. You may recognize it below. Toho Studio. WIT Studio. (2023). 怐荒ęœØå“²éƒŽĆ—SawanoHiroyuki[nZk]ļ¼šHata Motohiro怑怎COLORs怏ļ¼TOHO animation ćƒŸćƒ„ćƒ¼ć‚ø惃ć‚Æćƒ•ć‚£ćƒ«ćƒ ć‚ŗ. Youtube. If youā€™ve looked beyond the memes, you might know that this is actually not from an anime series, but a music video for the song COLORs by Sawano Hiroyuki and Hato Motohiro. The anime stylings from the video are recognizable as the work of Toho Studios (Your Name, Jujutsu Kaisen) and WIT Studio (Attack on Titan, Spy x Family). If you have not seen the original music video, it is worth a watch and a listen. What I do understand from three and a half minute animation is the dark haired protagonistā€™s fascination with the iconic pink-haired individual, and some sort of military situation that seems like a mix of Neon Genesis Evangelion and Extinction (2018). I donā€™t know enough to comment about the exploration of gender that occurs in the music video, but it is another prominent point, and element that many of the memes using the clip focus on. The translated lyrics do not do much more to elucidate the plot of the video, speaking only appreciating a unreachable and transient sense of beauty in another person. If you have your own theories on the meaning of the animation and song, Iā€™d love to hear them and Iā€™m sure folks around these parts would too.
  11. That's fascinating, I didn't realize that there was this connection between him and Ghost in the Shell. The infection of the Individual Eleven virus through an essay and its effects is very similar to the plot of Mishima's Runaway Horses, and of course, the author's own actions.
  12. I just started Blue Lock. I know its not accurate to real life team sports, but interesting concept nonetheless.
  13. [ Recommended listening: ark - L'Arc-en-Ciel ] So here's the job, really. You're in the office not by your own merit, but because a manager is gambling on any sort of win to recoup his losses. Within a year, you're the only one that stuck through all the disasters - even the guy who hired you has left. The turnover and promotions have already made you one of the more senior employees below management. The office is left at square one and desperately needs to be rebuilt. What do you do? Any decently rational person would see the writing on the wall and prepare their own departure. But for whatever reason, I've taken the Great Teacher Onizuka route. With the defiance of a Driver's High opening, I approached my former manager's manager with a sort of ultimatum: if you want me to be the foundation of this near empty office, we're throwing our old conventions out the window. Yes, I would still do the job on paper of running all your systems, but my own goal was to work with our new hires to be more genuine with their ideas and interactions. Strict professionalism, management should have learned, can be stifling. And though I may never have done such outrageous or inappropriate things as Onizuka, I have had my share of being called up to management offices regarding humorously-placed googly eyes, excessive amounts of birthday balloons and the hideous bronze walrus that become our office mascot, et cetera. But like Eikichi-san, I have seen these antics bring my people together. They all survived the disastrously high turnover rate of the past so far, and seem to be thriving. No Toyota Cresta's destroyed in the process. While I don't know what exactly the future may bring for me, here's to a decent anime that inspired me to write about my work, and a manga series I really should read! Hope to be around these parts a bit more often - see you all soon.
  14. @Ohayotaku coming in clutch with all the catgirls I missed. Bless your heart
  15. Please Teacher! I've just checked and it appears there still exists a dubbed version on YouTube. I have no idea how it holds up after all these years, so be warned
  16. Pretty sure it was brought on by finally getting unsupervised internet time as a kid. I got to finally explore YouTube on my own and I ended up finding a pirated anime that had been uploaded in horrible, horrible resolution. It was a short 13 episode rom-com. I can't remember how I found it, but I liked it because the protagonist's tragic love life felt relatable to an angsty teenager. Once you get hooked on the FEELS, becoming a weeb is inevitable.
  17. Glad to see that catgirl enjoyers are still out there. Stay cultured, my friend. Funny you should specifically mention oni for this. I've been watching Urusei Yatsura and it seems they did a decent job of adding humor to the oni characters while still preserving their folklore aspects. I'm totally on board with you about how gimmicky these types of characters can be though.
  18. INTRODUCTION Hello, and welcome to a rather ridiculous blog post. As an enjoyer of nekomimi ā€“ that is cat-eared characters ā€“ in anime, Iā€™ve chosen to review how the trope has developed throughout 2021. This is intended as a bit of a parody of similar annual reviews in academia. Iā€™m not taking this writing very seriously, and you probably shouldnā€™t either. That being said, letā€™s take a look at what happened to cat characters in 2021! GENERAL TRENDS Of the many terms to describe cat-eared characters (ā€œnekomimiā€, ā€œcatgirlā€, ā€œcatboyā€, ā€œcatpersonā€, ā€œnekomusumeā€), the most popular one by far is ā€œcatgirlā€, according to Google. For that reason, Iā€™m using the term as a proxy for more general interest in nekomimi, at least in the English speaking world. [Google Trend data for "catgirl" for the last 5 years. The spike in Oct '21 is off the chart, peaking at 100 points higher than expected] Google Trends shows that searches for the term has generally increased over the past 5 years, growing at an average rate of 1.17 points per year. The graph above shows that for most of 2019 and 2020, searches for "catgirl" grew slower than expected. However in 2021 it seems we've gotten out of this slump. In October of this year, especially there was an extreme spike in the number of searches. Initially, I suspected that this increase was the result of people preparing cat-themed costumes for Halloween, but a comparison to previous yearsā€™ data indicates that searches for ā€œcatgirlsā€ should remain fairly constant the entire year. That is to say: We do not expect to see a Halloween spike. So why was this year different? As far as I can tell, this attention was due to two things: [1] The release of a catgirl themed cryptocurrency on October 21st [2] Notorious meme man Elon Musk tweeting about catgirls 3 times that same week (possibly to influence prices of [1]) While it is unfortunate that this interest in catgirls had not much to do with actual nekomimi in anime, Iā€™m hoping that it nonetheless kicks off demand for new neko-style content. Because, as weā€™ll see in the next sections, weā€™re in desperate need of it. [Musk tweeting about catgirls in October 2021] ANIME Nekomimi representation in anime has been absolutely dreadful for 2021. In preparation for this blogpost, Iā€™ve combed Google, Reddit, Twitter and quite a few anime databases in order to figure out what cat-eared characters made their debut this year. After many hours, Iā€™ve come up with a disappointingly small list. Here is quick summary of what I could find. Donā€™t Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro features the titular character dressing up as ā€˜Nekotoroā€™ and her friends donning the ā€˜Torocatā€™ mascot costumes. As a recurring gag, Komi-san occasionally grows cat ears in Komi Canā€™t Communicate. Though originally played as one of Komiā€™s reactions, other characters in-universe are able to see them too, for some reason. And for fall anime, The Fruit of Evolution featured Origa Calmeria sportting nekomimi as well. [Komi's cat ears pop up throughout the series] Although not strictly a cat, I consider Jahyā€™s hairstyle ā€œcat-likeā€ enough to mention The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated on this list as well. Outside of Japanese animation, we found a few neko characters as well. Mao Ling Xiangce features an entire island of them doing standard moe things. And Crunchyroll introduced Olive as a villanous catgirl for their original High Guardian Spice series. What is there to say about the catpeople of 2021? Unfortunately, not much. Anime nekomimi appear to have fallen by the wayside. We may glimpse a cat ear here and there, but they are all too brief. Their moments in these series are typically meant to augment a characterā€™s humorous quirks rather than be a key element of their identity. Adendum: The following characters were graciously mentioned by Ohayotaku after this article was originally written. Thank you for the input! Mushoku Tensei's Ghislane Platinum End's Saki Rumble Garanndoll's Misa Kuroki + cat mech MANGA Iā€™m horribly out of touch with the manga scene. If I figure out any cat characters that appeared in new manga this year, this section will be edited to include them. VTUBERS With the continued rise of virtual youtubers this year, it is worth examining this aspect of internet culture for cat aesthetics as well. Hololive, saw idols Lamy, Rushia, Flare, Luna, Gura and Kiara all debut versions of their avatars with cat ears. Searches on the Virtual Youtuber Wiki and Twitter reveal that neko-inspired outfits remain popular choices in freshening up vtuber wardrobes. The addition of cat ears to established outfits is often nothing more than superficial change, but in a nekomimi-starved world, it is a welcome sight. For the sake of brevity and relevance, I cannot list all of the smaller personalities Iā€™ve found here, but be assured, theyā€™re out there if you take a minute to look. And it is also worth mentioning that there seemed to be more neko-tuber activity in 2020. Had I done this review a year earlier, this section could have been a lot more interesting. [HololiveEN member Kiara showing off nekomimi avatar] CONCLUSION Looking ahead, I am hoping for a nekomimi revival in 2022. Over the years, the archetype has lost popularity to other kemononomimi such as kitsune, as well as fully anthropomorphized characters. But the appreciation for cat ears is still out there. And if the Catgirl Re-NYA-ssaince doesnā€™t happen this year, I will be happy if there are just one or two good cat characters to enjoy. As 2022 rolls around, I hope to acquire a better sense of where to find nekomimi related content. That alone will greatly improve the quality of future reviews. If you have any such resources or know of characters I didnā€™t cover, I would be extremely appreciative if you shared them. Iā€™m looking forward to writing another one of these in a year. Thank you for reading!
  19. For me, one of the most poignant aspects of slice-of-life is how the genre treats the concept of time. The chain of moments that make up the series slowly advances, but there are rarely consequences to the flow of time itself. This is a necessary thing. The environment and situation remain relatively static in order to highlight the development of their characters. The removal of ā€œreal timeā€ from slice-of-life is what makes the characters (and their interactions with one another) endure as charming and heartwarming. One of my favorite examples of this is from Nichijou. There are little transitions that occasionally follow a scene, what the folks at the Nichijou wiki refer to as interstitials. Theyā€™re only a few seconds long, displaying the title of the anime and usually some sort of small animation. While they contribute next to nothing to our understanding of the story, I love them immensely. To me, theyā€™re slice-ier and life-ier than Nichijouā€™s already slice-of-life plot. Major respect for Kyoto Animation for how they implemented these scenes. And enough talking, here are a few interstitials that I thought were really fun: Episode 3 Interstitial 3 Episode 6 Interstitial 2 Episode 10 Interstitial 2 Episode 13 Interstitial 1 Episode 15 Interstitial 5
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