for another season of Parks & Rec next fall, hooray! In the meantime, here’s a Pyramid of Greatness to tide you over (besides reruns :)) – click image for a bigger version!

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These crack me up…!

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as opposed to last time!

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Well, it’s been awhile since I watched any anime – but what’s cool is that despite having thought I had watched most of the ‘really’ cool series (Initial D, Ghost in the Machine, Cowboy Bebop, etc.) there was still at least one more great one out there – Samurai Champloo. Just watched the last episode today, sad to end it.

This is the next series done by the director of Cowboy Bebop, Shinichirō Watanabe. Completed in 2004, it tells the story of a young girl, Fuu, seeking a ‘samurai who smells of sunflowers’, accompanied by two master swordsman – Mugen (a fairly wild man/criminal type who literally lives on the edge nearly the entire series) and Jin (reserved, quiet dojo master fighter who says little but can clearly handle himself). The two effectively act as Fuu’s bodyguards (not always successfully) for the interesting and sometimes crazy situations that crop up along their journey. The story is set in Japan’s isolationist Edo period (late 1600’s to 1800’s) so it’s a very rural society with only basic firearms becoming available, possibly through limited European influence/trading. The travelers journey for a long time across Japan, ending near Nagasaki.

There are a number of interesting parallels with Cowboy Bebop, if you pay close attention. The three main characters vary wildly in personality and are largely thrown together by circumstance, much like the crew of the Bebop in the earlier show. While the journey of the Bebop is a bit more disjointed, an overwhelming sense of wandering without knowing why, where or how is a strong influence on both series. And the characters of both seem to be running from their past lives while somehow circling back to confront them at the same time. Finally, in thinking about it, I can see where Mugen and Jin are arguably the two halves of Spike Spiegel from Bebop – the crazy wild side that loves to fight and thrives on excitement and conflict (Mugen); and the measured, calculating, quiet side that still retains an edge (Jin).

But there are plenty of new things to enjoy about Samurai Champloo, too. The pervasive influence of music and specifically, hip-hop in the theme and at various intervals where you least expect it. The ability of the stories to relate history while putting a new (sometimes blatantly fictional) spin on it. Ultimately, taking a rather simplistic concept that’s been arguably done many times (Kung Fu, the original Hulk tv series, even Samurai Jack) yet still creating something new and very entertaining.

Like most anime, we don’t get to see *all* the motivations of the main characters – many are left to the imagination. And in the usual anime way, there is endless posturing and one-upmanship that I’m starting to think is just a facet of Japanese society (old or new) – but never having been there, i’ll have to take that one on faith for now. And there are a few cliff jumps in this show that are unbelievable (meaning not possible to survive if you did it) but i’m picking nits here.

In summary, I’d have to conclude Samurai Champloo was a very pleasant surprise as to the quality and entertainment value and ranks among the best anime I’ve seen to date, surely up there with those mentioned above – Check it out if you get the chance!

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very cool video and experiment idea!

What happens when you wring out a washcloth in space?

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🙂

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One of the great ones has passed. Here’s an article and some tributes…

Yahoo Obit:
Jonathan Winters, man of many faces, dead at 87

Great pair of Marc Maron stories on JW:
Marc Maron on the Genius of Jonathan Winters and His “Possession of a Comic Muse Perpetually at War With the Darkness In His Mind”

JW and RW goofing around on 60 Minutes

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too funny. And Batman is important!

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So apparently a few years back, Joss Whedon (of Firefly, Buffy and recently, Avengers fame) wrote an X-Men series for Marvel, called Astonishing X-Men, which has since been taken up by other writers in the later years (still ongoing afaik). More recently, a group called Marvel Knights have committed several of these to animation, in what they call a ‘motion comic’ – I would call it a cross between the South Park style of crude paper-type animation with some anime influences but far better art in most cases than either of these. It’s not full-on animation though – it’s more like moving pictures matched with dialog. Different, but pretty effective when watched.

So there are four DVDs/Blu-Ray out now (for Astonishing X-Men, there are other shows done by Marvel Knights too, see above) – the series starts with Gifted (2009); Dangerous (2009); Torn (2012) and the most recent, Unstoppable (late 2012). Each disc contains a series of interconnected stories that have many, many side plots, subplots and in some cases, peripheral characters coming and going all over the place. Naturally it helps if you are very familiar with the X-Men already, and with other Marvel heroes too (because many outsiders also pop in from time to time).

While this isn’t Pixar or Dreamworks cgi-style animation, I have to say I liked the style here. Because the animation isn’t intended to carry the story, they can spend far more time on dialog, plot points and character development, and in most cases, they succeed. There are sometimes where this falls down or the pacing is a bit too slow, but overall these are solid entertainment and if you like the comic stories but don’t really get into reading comics otherwise – this is a nice way to go. And unlike the crapshoot that live-action comic movies can be from time to time (all the early Batman movies prior to Batman Begins, many of the Marvel one-off comic movies, i’m talking to YOU), here the writers and art don’t have to veer so far away from the comic stories as in live-action. They can stay far truer to their roots and just go big on over-the-top scenarios that work well in the comic world but can start to look fairly ridiculous when live-action movies are made (see comments on the Avengers movie on that score).

I also liked that they changed the characters around a bit from the X-Men movies and even vs. the traditional X-Men team, but still kept a core team consistent from show to show (Wolverine, Cyclops, Beast) and added a few new/returnees along the way (Emma Stone, Kitty Pryde, Colossus) to mix it up. And it’s not all centered on Professor X or regularly recurring bad guys like some of the older stories or even the movies, e.g. no Magneto. Additionally, SHIELD and SWORD have an increasing role as you proceed through the series – which opens up more tangential plot holes if you care to analyze too closely – so just don’t – roll with it and enjoy instead… 🙂

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