we're finally notdotq anymore

lolikappa’s retrospective into the future brought to my attention the fact that lelangir is going to have been hit by a car this year. A suspicious comment of ghostlightning’s on GRSI made me think: maybe the good’ol bansheeelectro has insider info on these events!

Everyone knows otou-san is actually ghostlightning, since ghostlightning is now otou-san!

I did some sleuth work—namely, I went into WRL’s admin panel using digiboy’s account—and I found the following draft (DRAFT!) in the ancient fucker’s post queue.

Proof positive.

This is all part of a ghastly plan!

In early February, ghostlightning will announce the next meatspace get-together for the FAB. lelangir, for whatever reason (probably not in the cloud, hidden deep in ghostlightning’s personal files), will be on the island, and he’ll join them.

Don’t join them, lelangir!

It’s a trap!

You know what they say about self-fulfilling prophecy?

←[99] SHAFT + School Rumble + Strawberry Panic. That’s the impression I got.

One half of the lead character binary is Kanako: lesbian, tall, tomboy, deretsun for Maria; only becoming insecure (tsun) once her homosexuality is put into question. Her character design and personality remind me of a cross between Yakumo and Tenma. Her external side is amiable, unconfident, pretty darn moe; her internal side is yuri. She contains both the lady-like grace of Yakumo and the horribly klutzy comical antics of Tenma. Her internal/external tendencies can reflect both Maria’s “split” personality and that pleasant Tenma/Yakumo proportion. Maria in fact breaks the fourth wall and calls her out for her lack of verbosity.

The other half of the duo is Maria, the trap. Without drawing needless parallels to Eri Sawachika, it seems established already that Maria is the seme and Kanako the uke. Maria’s façade is humorous enough now that the entire universe has been spoiled of the secret, though it’s the masculinity that is paradoxically accentuated by the feminine appearance, making him much more conniving and serpentine. In some ways he reminds me of Light – not overbearingly GAR but with enough boyishness to possess “best” (or worst?) of both gender.

What’s significant is that the viewer experiences the anime through Kanako – we see her internal monologues. By positioning the viewer “outside” of Maria, [s]he is effectively transformed into the incrementalist, the character that is revealed bit by bit. Reaction porn for some hopeful action porn? I think what this means in the long run is, unless SHAFT starts dealing out paradigm shifts and situating the viewer within Maria’s soliloquies, it will be expected of the viewer to find humor (1) in that incremental revealing of Maria’s secrets and (2) Kanako’s predictable reactions – all the super deformation is reserved for her. The anime, replete with Kanako-colored lenses, establishes a sort of Unlimited Poetic Justice Works: since all of Kanako’s yuri actions are laced with guilt, it’s only natural that we expect Maria to backlash with hypocritical masochism (HUH?).

Anyway, this show is really hilarious! Its comedy does not downplay at all the yuri, and even if you DO NOT WANT trap, you’re basically forced to temporarily forget about it because we’re observing Maria via Kanako. Kanako the flaming lesbian.

Final verdict: if you liked the characterizations in School Rumble, the yuri/catholic(?) themes in Strawberry Panic, and SHAFT’s crazyness, you will definitely enjoy Mariaholic. [note: I did not catch a lot of marimite in here - marimite isn't really even indirectly satired.]

BTW, 100^th post, dedicated to lolikitsune, mai dear waifu.

In an amazingly good show, DS of Daijoubu has announced that he is fed up with how shitty bad anime is. He has issued a call to arms, and has requested that everyone do their best to back him up in his holy war. One of the things he does in his post that is most unfortunate, however, is that he calls on me as though I need to mobilize.

Does he not know? I’ve been waging this war on my own for years.

» Continue reading this…

I’m grateful to mellow_bunny and Edgeworth. If I hadn’t talked to them, I would have remained a lowly shadow of my former self… so… please listen to my song. “That Lily Is Gay.”

» Continue reading this…

Zaitcev style (click for more).

Am I only watching the bad shows, or does anime just suck these days?

Back in the day, there was this show called Strawberry Panic, and it was fun to mess around and point out all the places where it had borrowed heavily from previous series. These days it seems like nothing is original. At all.

Macross F? Code Geass R2? More like, Macross (variable) and NGE.

What’s new? Where is it?

And why does the repetition suck?

The following post reflects on how beautiful Aria is, how much I’ve changed over the course of the last two and a half years, and how pointlessly dumb Erica Friedman is. (jkjk!) Now that I’ve given an overview that includes a completely uncalled-for insult of a well-loved person, let’s take the plunge! » Continue reading this…