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Daft Punk is a French electronic music group, and many of their songs are some of my absolute favorites. The French duo that make up Daft Punk are also big anime fans. So back in 2001, after the release of their album Discovery, they went to Japan and collaborated with Leiji Matsumoto (Space Battleship Yamato, Captain Harlock, and Galaxy Express 999, all late 1970s anime) to make an animated film which corresponded to the tracks from their album. The result was Interstella 5555. It's basically the entire Discovery album made into a 68-minute long film. The first four tracks were shown on Cartoon Network back in the fall of 2001 (I remember watching them right after the September 11th attacks), and then the DVD of the entire album was released in 2003. There are no words, and minimal sound effects, but the story follows the music. I see that Daft Punk has started putting some of the videos up on their official YouTube page, and someone else has filled in all the gaps, so the entire thing is available on YouTube, on a song-by-song basis. I've been wanting to watch it again myself, and thought it might be fun to just put the whole thing up, one song a day. There are 14 tracks, so this should take me two weeks to run through. So here's the first part, One More Time: More to come! Tags: anime, daft punk, music, videos
Current Location: 41.197N 81.433W
Current Mood:  pleased
Current Music: Daft Punk - One More Time
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Amazingly, Sci-Fi Channel actually has plans to bring some good programming to its network, instead of green-lighting Mansquito 3 or a new Stargate SG-1 spinoff (ok, I lied, that last part is true). Sci-Fi will be showing English dubbed episodes of Gurren Lagann and Mobile Suit Gundam 00 starting July 28th and November 17th, respectively. There will be two new episodes a week. Gurren Lagann is probably the best new anime series I've seen since the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. And at the moment I'm trying to talk Mark into watching Gundam 00 with me. So far the first half of the series has aired in Japan, and will start up again in October. Here's the second intro, which I really like: Tags: anime, gundam, sci-fi, videos
Current Location: 41.197N 81.433W
Current Mood: surprised
Current Music: none
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Obvious statement of the day: not working sucks. I can also definitively state that I'd rather be depressed about the job I have than not having one at all. That said, I'm trying really hard to keep a positive attitude. My main goals at the moment (besides, obviously, writing cover letters and sending out copies of my resume) is trying to hold a regular schedule, exercise, and trying to keep myself occupied with things that improve my attitude. I'm fine almost all day long, it's when I'm sitting in bed at night and can't sleep that it's at its worst. There are lots of things I can do around the apartment, and they all help, but I've been watching some really great anime the last few days and that's helping a great deal, especially One Piece and Gundam 00. One Piece is a GREAT show that... ah hell, there's no way I could effectively describe it in a paragraph. It's about pirates, and awesome. I realize that last sentence was redundant. The anime is based on the manga of the same name and has been running since 1999, with over 349 episodes and 8 movies so far! Suffice to say I will probably be watching it for a looong time to come. The other show I've been watching is Gundam 00, the most recent Gundam series. The first season just finished up in Japan, 25 episodes. The last 10 episodes or so just blew me away - it's much better than any Gundam series I've seen before. I can't wait for the final 25 - but they won't start up again until October :(. As is my way, here is the second intro ("Ash Like Snow"), which I like: current weather: Clear, 41, Wind: E 3; Tags: anime, gundam 00, one piece
Current Location: 41.197N 81.433W
Current Mood:  distressed
Current Music: none
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I never thought I would be writing about a feature on the ESPN webpage, but the ESPN Gamecast (just click on one of the scores at the top of the page, you may need to switch to the sport you want) is a really cool thing. When I was in Georgia last weekend I noticed Keith using it while watching OSU football. Gamecast lets you watch the progress of a game on your computer with a graphical display, with stats and other information displayed. He was watching multiple college football games at once, with scores displayed, and whenever a team got into the red zone it would turn red. Last week it was a life saver for me. The Indians/Yankees series was only available on TV on cable, so I would listen to the games on the radio while I had ESPN Gamecast open on my computer. The Indians/Red Sox game on tonight is available on FOX here so I've got it on the TV, but I prefer the radio anyway, so I'm here at the computer with the radio on and the Gamecast window open while I do other stuff. There's even a chat feature, they've got some baseball writer on there talking, but he seems to be more interested in talking about baseball topics not directly related to the game. Which, by the way, has been very stressful so far, right now it's tied 6-6. I just discovered a few minutes ago that apparently there's a good anime series running right now in Japan with a baseball theme called Major. The manga follows the main character from little league all the way to professional baseball. The anime started in 2004, and is about to start its 4th season, and includes the Baseball World Cup and Major League Baseball. It sounds pretty cool, I'm gonna check it out: (obligatory anime intro video) Come on Indians! current weather: Mostly Clear, 48, Wind: calm Tags: anime, baseball, boston red sox, cleveland, cleveland indians, espn, videos
Current Location: 41.197N 81.433W
Current Mood: excited
Current Music: Indians game
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Mark and I have finished watching Rurouni Kenshin. Well, not totally finished, but as much as we're going to watch. There are quite a few episodes left and an OVA and movie, but I'm going to watch them on my own, or at least make the attempt. Apparently they aren't up to the same level of quality. In the meantime we've started watching a show which is currently airing in Japan called Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, which I guess translates into something like "Break-Through Heaven Gurren Lagann", where "Gurren Lagann" is the name of a Voltron-esque mech on the show. It's made by many of the people that made FLCL, although it's nowhere near as weird. Well, don't get me wrong, it IS kind of weird, just not FLCL-weird. FLCL is in a class all its own. Anyway, it takes place presumably on far-future Earth, in which mankind lives underground. The main character, Simon, is a digger, who digs to help expand the size of his village. One day he stumbles on a small robot that he's able to walk around in, plot ensues, and Simon finds himself on the surface with Kamina, another village eccentric, and a girl named Yoko, who carries a big gun and is from another village. I just did a really horrible job of explaining the story. So enough talk, have at the cool intro! It started airing in Japan in April, and will wrap up this month at 27 episodes. Mark: the Wikipedia article links to an Anime News Network article which explains the whole situation with the animation in the fourth episode. I guess it was a guest animator, a friend of the producer of the show. He ended up resigning from Gainax completely over the whole thing, I guess fans on 2chan were slamming the quality of the animation and he made some rather unkind comments himself, and then resigned, and there's a new producer from episode 5 on (and his name was taken off the credits). Tags: anime, gurren lagann, videos, youtube
Current Location: 41.197N 81.433W
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: none
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Tonight I watched the first two episodes of the 2004 anime version of Area 88. Area 88 is actually an older Japanese manga, which ran from 1976-1986 and was one of the first mangas ever translated into English for North America. The reason I had ever heard of it before is through a really good Capcom shooter on the Super Nintendo (and arcades) called UN Squadron, which was based on the manga. To some extent it's basically jet fighter porn, but the setting is also sort of unique. It takes place in a fictional desert country called Asran in the early 1980s (although I swear I saw some laptops in the first couple of episodes) and while it's mainly about dogfighting and jet battles it has an almost Catch-22 bent to it. At Area 88, mercenary pilots have to pay their own expenses but get paid for missions completed and specific objectives. From Wikipedia: "There are only three ways to leave Area 88: Survive three years (highly unlikely), buy out your contract for one and a half million dollars(difficult as a mercenary must pay for all his expenses including stiff fines for turning down hazardous missions) or desertion (a capital offense if caught). With each enemy plane brought down, Shin [the main character] faces his shifting acceptance of the violence and killing that fills every day, as well as suppressing his feelings of wrong-doing." Anyway, it's not particularly high-brow but I think it's been kinda cool so far. I guess there's an OVA that was made in 1985 and 1986 as well, which I might look into if I like the 2004 series enough. There are only 12 episodes so it won't take me too long to watch. Also, the intro music doesn't have lyrics, and I think it's a remix of a Bach tune: The show also has a lot of trance music by Vincent de Moor, who is a favorite of mine :). current weather: Partly Cloudy, 66, Wind: calm; It was a really nice day out today Tags: anime, area 88, jets, videos, youtube
Current Location: 41.197N 81.433W
Current Mood:  calm
Current Music: none
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