Hey Hollywood! Leave our GitS alone!

Ghost In The Shell characters. Any chance of Hollywood including Tachikomas in the movie?

I’m joining the internet`s collective gasp upon hearing that Scarlet Johnson will star in DreamWork’s production’s Ghost in the Shell.

A lot of commentators point out how white, blond and blue eyed Johnson is, whereas Motoko Kusanagi (Who she is likely to play) is a brunette (in the original movie version) or dark-blue haired (in the TV-series and S.A.C. movies) with Japanese facial features.

I willing to take a wait-and-see stance with regards to this. I do think Johnson kicked ass in the Avengers series. Hair can be died. And who knows? She could end up playing this character (Fat chance). Or maybe as one of several Motoko alternate bodies as a part of a GitS: MMI story arc (Yeah, what are the chances of a Holywood  movie including this complex of an idea and still leaving room for a plot…).

But I have to wonder what kind of treatment would Hollywood give the complex themes of GitS with its strong anti-establishment undertones. While post-Snowden America is primed for a strong anti-big-brother message, I doubt Hollywood is.

Oh yeah, if I get to geek out about Ghost in the Shell I should point out that as a sysadmin I want  this. It would be really useful sometimes…

Wai! manga about Ubuntu!

Well, I couldn’t let such reconciliation of my hobbies go uncommented, its not often that I get to have a post go simultaneously in the Ubuntu and Anime/Mange categories, its really nicely drawn as well.

Anime and Debian

Every once in a while, looking though my blog stats, I find some very weird searches hitting my blog, of the kind I cannot ignore (And therefore strive to ensure they keep hitting my blog), Today I found just such a search: “anime debian”.

Anime and Debian, hmm… unless I am failing to see a different meaning for the word Debian, this is indeed a weird combination, I can’t possibly think what the person who conducted the search expected it to yield.

It does ring a certain bell, I did remember seeing a picture of Debian-tan once, which is part if the “Linux-tan” series of characters, which is an attempt at a Linux-based response to the OS-tans.

Code Gaess: Lelouch of the Rebellion

Ok, so what do we have here:

• Mechas wrecking havoc in the city: Check.
• Mysterious girl to make her appearance in key event: Check.
• Motivated but self-doubtful teenage male characters to pilot the Mechas: Check.
• Main character mysteriously better at piloting Mechas then anyone else: Check.
• Long time friends find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict: Check.
• Super-Mecha to end all Mechas presented to the world: Check.
• Bad guy with vague morals and sexual orientation: Check

Cyrano de Bergerac is a girl! and her name is “The World”!

But really, other then that fun title-ish tidbit, I can’t find anything interesting about School Days.

After its description on AniDB as being based on a famously violent game caught my eyes, I sat down and watched the first three episodes of the series, thinking it may have an Elfen Lied kind of twist right around the corner.

But no, all I’ve seen so far was a rather stretched-out, kitschy, love story, and well, I’ve seen Kare Kano, this one doesn’t come close, nor does it manage to be funny.

So, another series down the drain, I’m starting to run out of ideas, anyone care to make a recommendation?

Not Gonna Watch Futakoi

While this series has a name that sounds like a promise for a rather hard-core Hentai series (In fact, I think I once came across a really “H” site named just that), in reality, Futakoi the series is a rather down-to-earth series in the Harem-Anime genre.

In fact, after having watched the first couple of episodes, I have to admit that the series is so down-to-earth that I can find little if any reason to watch it.

I admit I’m not very fond of the Harem-Anime genre, but in this case I think even avid fans of the genre will be hard-pressed to find anything special or interesting about the series, the twins element is supposed to make it interesting, but for me, it just seems like they were looking for an excuse to draw every female character twice…

Why watch Claymore

If you take a look at my “My Stats” section, you’ll note that I mention Claymore as the next Anime I’m going to watch, it is quite apparent that this isn’t quite the usual kind of Anime I prefer watching, for once, on the face of it, its completely Shounen, full of 15 year-old testosterone and slim girls with huge-ass (Berserk-style) swords killing Yoma, which are nowhere as colorful as even the ones in Inuyasha.

And indeed, when I gave it my customary 3-episode evaluation watch, I couldn’t find many reasons to keep on watching, for once, I find the crybaby character of Raki (Lucky?) quite annoying.

Still, I kept on watching, I don’t know what was it that compelled me to, maybe it was the cliffhanger at the end of the 3rd episode, or Clair’s character design (I do seem to have a weakness for short haired Anime characters), or maybe there was something to the interaction between Clair and Raki after all.

Giant-Robot Anime characters on BoingBoing

Well, not really, but there is no way in hell I won’t link to this, and while Cory gets it wrong, few commentators to the post bother mentioning that this just screams Rei Ayanami to anyone whose ever been into Anime.

But I must admit that looking at the image on Cory’s post, it just doesn’t convey the same sense of silent strength the Rei’s character does, indeed it seems to suggest at some woman degrading fetish.

Onegai Twins is Great!

By following a simple set of rules, I’ve recently allowed myself to get back to watching Anime, but in order to watch Anime, one has to acquire anime, and following my third rule of moderate acquisition, I previewed and had trouble choosing between UFO Princess Valkyrie as well as Mahou Sensei Negima that while both being nice and amusing, great they are not.

But then I previewed Onegai Twins, and it became obvious. Onegai Twins is a whole other league, and is the kind of Anime I’m looking for, in comparison, the other 2 series simply belong (and ended) in the recycle bin…

Anime Music Videos

For Anime and Music lovers such as myself the appeal of Anime Music Videos or AMVs for short is obvious, its all the appeal of good music and the visual excellence of Anime packed into a sweet ~5 minute dish using some top video editing skills and often with the added spice of good humor.

For that reason its no surprise that, having been triggered by the video fair-use test-suite published by EFF, I embarked on a quest to seek out and enjoy some good AMVs on Google Video.