15 Thoughts from Akihabara

For those of you who don’t follow me on twitter, and that means pretty much everyone, I recently went to Japan. Two of my days were spent in Akihabara. Below are some of my thoughts on what some have referred to as the Anime holy land.

Mikunopolis: Christmas in July and World Conquest

I returned from Los Angeles and Anime Expo 2011 a few days ago and I have to say that the highlight of my trip, other than the soon to be regretted level of purchases I made in the dealer’s room, was anything dealing with Hatsune Miku. While the high point of all things Miku was obviously Mikunopolis, it was fun to learn a lot more about Miku over the course of the weekend through all of the panels. Before heading to Los Angeles, I was definitely a fan of the virtual idol, but going into the weekend I didn’t really know what to expect. After leaving, it struck me that being a fan of Miku was really a lot like believing in Santa for a few reasons.

First, like the meaning of Christmas, Miku can really be whoever you want her to be depending on what you like to do, and I’m not talking about her seemingly endless wardrobe for all the perverts out there. Well, I suppose that might be part of it. Still, fans can create new songs, animations, or character designs of and about Miku and send them out there for others to enjoy through the use of the internet. But just as Christmas isn’t just about candy canes and sleigh bells, Miku isn’t just about the music. One thing that became perfectly clear to me almost immediately this weekend is that Miku could very easily be a synonym for Commercialism, and in a lot of ways this is a good thing. It is because of this entrepreneurial spirit fan designs for Miku show up in games or on figures. It is because of this entrepreneurial spirit that allows companies to make money off of Miku’s products, even through the use of a decentralized business model. And in the truest of sense of all things commercialism, Miku is often depicted in pictures that are less than pure.

C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control 5 – Going Concern

This series has spent the last two episodes building up a lot of important plot points, including the revelation that losing in the Financial District can change this world’s reality. However, the real interesting plot point from the past two episodes has been the expanded explanation regarding the activities of the Guild. While it certainly seems possible for Mikuni to control the financial district and save Japan’s economy at the same time on paper, in practice it seems as though it is only a matter time before his house of cards come tumbling down.

Mysu is still great, but the animation quality really took a dive this episode.

C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control 3 – The Rules of the Info Dump

Let us imagine an imaginary organization that gives actual awards for anime, and this organization gave awards to individual episodes from the aforementioned anime, and one category of awards was for the best info dump episode, then this episode of C would most assuredly, in all likelihood not win the aforementioned award. That said, it didn’t do a bad job of info dumping either, for the four following reasons, which I hereby refer to as the Rules of Info Dumping (feel free to add more).

C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control 2 – Explaining the Open Deal Battle System, and What C May Mean

That was one hell of a battle, right? First, I have to say I’ve seen some chatter online the past few days about how this show reminds people a lot about Yugioh, and quite frankly I’m appalled at the rush with which people assume all shows with cards are alike. Most will likely quietly move away from these idiotic assertions over the next few days, but many might say what is up with that whack battle system. You’ll deride the show for its lack of explanation, or the fact that Mashu didn’t sustain any real damage during the battle. But, with a quick lesson, you’ll be up to speed. (Partially talking out of my ass, but I do almost have two degrees in this general area, so, you know, not really.)

Not that this necessarily applies, but this post in no way constitutes financial advice.

C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control 1 – Because Super Long Subtitles Must Mean Something, and I Am Offering An Explanation

For an opening episode, C did an excellent of setting up its world, detailing its characters, and opening the door for many potential avenues the show could take in the future. All that said, the most interesting part of the episode was its opening 5 minutes or so in which some poor sap who loses a battle in the Financial District, for one reason only: The concepts of chance and collateral.

[Review] Star Driver

When I look back at Star Driver a few months from now, I’ll probably think about how the show straddled the line between seemingly gratuitous, entertaining action and actually telling a story. A show that can actually pull both of these things off is a pretty rare thing. While Star Driver was at points able to do both of these things quite well, it never seemed able to do them at the same time. This ultimately keeps it from being great, and instead relegates it to the land of pretty good.

Star Driver 25 – Let the Real Battle Begin (END)

For everything that happened in Star Driver’s hectic finale, the episode pretty much focused on two tried and true anime themes, youth and friendship, and in that order. Though there were a few things that made me question how the series was written, the copious amounts of action, the levels of character growth, not to mention the background music made the conclusion to Star Driver a satisfying one that clearly does NOT need a sequel.

Least Important Part of This Episode

Spring 2011 Season Preview

Alright, so we’re pretty much on the eve of the start of the Spring 2011 season, which means it’s time for our previews. Below, you’ll read what each of the 4 of us think of the many many shows that are coming up. It seems that noitaminA is creating great anticipation again with its financial thriller [C] The Money of Soul and Possibility Control, and the much hyped urban fantasy/scifi thriller Steins;Gate has caught our attention. We fork in our interests quite a bit from there, which is expected given the huge number of shows next season, but studio Shaft’s works seem to be on all our radars, a sign of the respect it’s earned over the past 2 years.

Star Driver 23 – Group Psychology

So in the end, Sugata eventually did make his move for power as the show had been hinting at for some time. Still, before leaving, he made quite the grand exit with Wako before switching sides and joining the Glittering Crux. I thought this episode tried really hard to emphasize, via Takuto’s conversation with the RA and her trio, that Sugata wasn’t only leaving Wako, but the trio as a whole. That makes Sugata’s actions in Zero Time a little difficult to understand, as it seems he had already made up his mind to join the Crux early on in the episode.

Because showing a King of the Peacocks screen cap would be too easy