Gaia is sick!

I posted a new written review, the first part of Media of the Year and a video review today. Merry Christmas! Sorry it's late.

So anyway I was browsing Gaia and something on the front page caught my attention. It seems a little sick for a previously non-profit community forum to encourage it's many, many users to purchase a credit card in times of "economic strife" (to quote pretty much everyone in politics these days) so that they can gain 10,000 gold in the game. Gaia's ad revenue for this must be massive because it pretty much violates every single thing that a "free" forum stands for.

What really got me was the section letting people under 18 sign up. Encouraging children to sign over thier livelyhood to VISA this early are we Gaia? You ungrateful dickheads.

Content Coming Soon. Rant Here Now!

Sorry I haven't posted reviews or MotW episodes for the last two weeks, I been a little swamped and my uncle died last Tuesday. Content will be resumed as per usual on Christmas, with a massive push to make up for the last two weeks. Also, I'm getting a new camera for Christmas so video quality will improve quite dramatically.

I might try to get a review done for tonight but I doubt it'll make it.

Right, now to rant.

Twilight:

The pre-teen erotica is here! In the form of pre-teen porn. By that I mean the film is out. I'm not going to rant about the film because I haven't seen it. Nor am I going to rant about the books, because I couldn't bring myself to read it (it was that badly written). I'm going to rant about the fans.

First off, I'm perfectly justified in this. No other form of fandom has spread this fast or been this consistently vocal, admittedly hardcore (worse than me) fans of Heath Ledger's Joker are almost as bad but at least they confine themselves to the internet when spouting their propaganda.

Twilight fans spare no-one. They are not courteous enough to confine themselves to the internet, nor are they kind enough to leave our forums. They are everywhere, even my English teacher has fallen to the menace!

I went to the cinema on Friday to see The Day The Earth Stood Still remake (review coming soon) and it was swamped by Twilight fans. I can't be sure given the generic nature of all the characters in Twilight but I think there were cosplayers.

So my message to Twilight fans is this: SHUT THE FUCK UP!

I'm going to play risk now >_<

Lack of updates

Sorry, my uncle died. 

Anime hurts my brain. (Top five worst trends in anime)

I've been watching quite a lot of anime recently (not always of my own volition) and I'm beginning to notice a few trends which I really think the culture needs to start addressing.

1: Monologues in Shoujo/Emotional Shonen

You know what I mean right? When one of the characters in an anime confesses thier feelings or wonders about how a different character can be so great: they always have a fucking monologue. Often it isn't even spoken, it's simply the inner macinations of their mind; but it's always insipid. 

I don't know about you but I have NEVER thought like an anime character. They seem to deliver huge monologues about the positive things in everything and it's just embarrasing. Maybe it's a reflection on Japanese culture, maybe I'm slightly more depressed or irate than the average anime character but it doesn't make sense to me.

To illustrate my point let's compare my viewpoint with an average Shoujo viewpoint on life.

Problem: In love My reaction: Wistful and joyous, with a slight sense of melancoly. Generic anime reaction: Unbrideled Happieness

Problem: On a date My reaction: Nervous, compensated for with sarcasm. Generic anime reaction: Unbrideled Happieness

Problem: Life in general My reaction: Angry, Annoyed, Sarcastic, Pompous, Exauhsted, Opinionated, Perplexed, Frenzied, Bored and Hungry.  Generic anime reaction: Unbrideled Happieness

Problem: Homework  My reaction: Angry, Worried and Useless.  Generic anime reaction: Unbrideled Happieness

Problem: Death My reaction: Depressed and Harrowed Generic anime reaction: Unbrideled Happieness

You get the idea right?

2: Stereotypical characters

There are only three or four female archetypes used in standard anime. They are: the emotional one (often serving as a main love interest or main character. Occasionally hides behind the pretense of being intelligent/strong willed), the perv (often bullys the love interest because they have MASSIVE issues with their own sexuality which are never fully explored), the wacko (serves as a rival love interest and comic foil) and the mysterious one (serves as either a rival love interest, main villain or the love interests best friend. Has massive issues with everything from sexuality to troubled childhood). In contrast there are five male stereotypes used in standard anime. They are: the nerd (serves as empathetic main character, love interest or comic foil), the perv (invariabley the main characters best friend. Serves as little more than a comic foil but has been known to fall in love towards the end of anime's run), the old man (serves as a mentor for the main character. Often a battle hardend warrior in Shonen), the mysterious one (serves as main villain, rival love interest or tortured friend) and the plucky youth (serves as main character or comic foil).

Now I wouldn't have a problem with these stereotypes if they weren't practically the only characters present in modern anime. Admittedly there is room for advancing these characters or creating highly stylised versions in order to create a unique anime, but even then characters still seem contrived and badly thought out. I find it extremely difficult to be empathetic with an archetype, the story and style of which has only been slightly changed since I last saw them.

3: Abprupt and unexplained changes in art style

This one has to stop! NOW! It's fucking ridiculous and it happens in every anime out there. You must know what I'm refering to. In an anime, any anime, when a seemingly "random" and "hilarious" event has occured, the art on the characters changes to reflect the situation. They often degenerate to barely identifiable circles.

I'm now going to use the anime Macademi Wasashoi! as a microcosm for the entirety of the culture. Within Macademi Wasashoi! the art style changes constantly to illustrate when the audience is supposed to laugh. However the art with Macademi Wasashoi! is not confined to the simple parameters of traditional anime animation: it uses clay! The clay figures have no resemblance to the characters they are supposed to be representing. Most ridiculous of all the clay figures appear in sequences alongside traditional animation. Do you see why this has to stop yet?

4: Clever animes getting pretentious, stupid animes being stupid

I admit it: I'm pretentious. I think that every piece of media must have some form of deeper meaning in order to be great. My admitance to being pretentious will not shock anyone who knows me, or even anyone who has visited my website, but just because I'm pretentious it doesn't mean that I want my anime to be pretentious because, more often than not, anime can't be pretentious effectively. EVA is dreadful, it spews philosophy at you. To be blunt: it isn't subtle. Death Note, one of my favourite animes, is too subtle. Most of the time I haven't got a clue what message it is trying to communicate. And to be honest EVA and Death Note are the only clever/pretentious animes I can think of.

Stupid animes on the other hand annoy the hell out of me. If an anime isn't funny or Death Note chances are I'm not interested because it doesn't mean anything. Like the majority of Hollywood being made of stupid and rubbish action films, most of anime culture is poluted by stupid anime's like Naruto or Bleach. 

5: Fans

Any culture that has fans who dress up as characters from their favourite animes regularly, draw fan art of their favourite characters having buttsex in all manner of fetishes, or write fanfiction which would make even those who have read the infamous Guts wretch, seriously needs to reasses itself. Enough said.

Heh.

This week's review is Wanted, both it and Media of the Week 3 are currently sitting up on the internet like a bird sits on a flag pole. Sorry; I just thought I'd try something different. It won't happen again don't worry.

Many of you may be wondering about the rather abrupt change in MotW and to put it simply: consumerist media moves slower than news, once I get into this I'm appealing to a wider audience, I have no money and I'll have more to talk about. Good? Good. 

Blog post titles are hard sometimes >_<

Sorry for the title, for some reason I couldn't think of anything else.

I've been thinking about completing my Lord of the Rings spoof by adding spoofs of "The Two Towers" and "Return of the King" and maybe recording the script as free to download MP3. I'd need actors though and I hate actors.

That leads me rather nicely to the film, which now has a full cast. They're going to be awful to manage they barely even listen to me as it is. The soundtrack for the film has potential now that I have Joe and another musician (named Barney) on board, I'm gonna try and supervise them so we get a really trippy rock tune with lots of chip-esque mind fuckery; I'll get you guys an MP3 when it's done (that was quite possibly the most awesome sentence I've typed in this blog). As for when you can expect to see the film's trailer, your guess is as good as mine. We're mainly dealing with finance and motivation at the moment and my work is over until we begin shooting.

I began writing a Spiderman comic when I was ill, just for fun, and I enjoyed it so much that I might continue with it. It's kinda dark and by "kinda dark" I mean Spidey totures people. I've gone for a clear cut narrative, with Spidey narrating over the course of his life as an old man, I realise that may seem a little inconcievable to most Marvel fans, but I think it works. To put it short I'm trying to do for Marvel what The Dark Knight Returns did for DC.

I just finished my UCAS forms. I'm staying local, mainly because I love Newcastle and the North East of England, but partially because of some of the people that live here. I'm, going for English Creative Writing and Film studies so I'll let you know how that turns out.

I'm done.

Treats

Call of Duty 5: World at War review is up, as is Media of the Week Episode 2.

After today I'm going to stop embedding videos in my blog and simply keep a YouTube video bar at the side.