Category: Guest Posts

Byakuya isn’t the only one getting a piece of Renji’s ass.

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renji, bleach
Spoilers up to the current chapters of Bleach.

Guest editorial by Lothos

Based on the number of Rukia x Renji fan-sites/supporters on forums, plus his standing in  Bleach character popularity polls (consistently in the top 5 until recently), I had to stop and wonder why people like him so much. The more I thought about his character the more I found myself baffled. As far as I can surmise, he just serves as fodder to fill air time/page space to placate the fan-girls who think he’s hot. So he’s Rukia’s buddy from back when they were in Rokungai. Great. That’s apparently so inconsequential that it’s only touched on a couple times in the series. When she’s going to be executed he seems to be pretty much okay with it until Ichigo and friends storm the castle. The more I look back at Renji, the more and more pointless he seems to be and the only reason I can think of why people like him is because he has tattoos and a spiffy haircut. Lets take a look at what exactly he’s ever done throughout the series.

He has never won a fight that mattered, not even his very first fight with Ichigo! Byakuya has to step in to save his bum because Ichigo powers up and almost kills him. [Ch. 55] And that was an essentially untrained Ichigo. His Bankai is weak, it’s just a bigger version of his sword. And not even a bigger cooler version like Komamura has, where a giant samurai is wielding his now gigantic sword and he controls it like the kid in Giant Robo. Nope, it’s just a bigger version of his whip blade thing. He also sucks at Kidou and the only time in memory where he actually puts it to good use is when fighting one of the Espada. During his fight with Szayel Aporro Granz, Espada #8, after basically trying everything against him with no effect he manages to use his Shikai to bind himself to Szayel and sets off a pillar of fire around them. This essential does nothing to Szayel other than make him cough from the smoke, and set him up for Ishida to attack. [Ch. 275] He had to blow himself up in the process to do nothing to the guy but char his clothes. Also, his Shikai has a horrible flaw in that it has a set number of times he can whip it around and then it has to go back to being a (for the most part) normal sword, so against any worthwhile fighter it’s pretty useless. [Ch. 96]

He is the constant “set the stage” character for whoever he happens to be running around with. Be it Ichigo, Ishida, or whoever else. He is so useless that all he can do is try to distract the enemy so someone worthwhile can actually do something to them because his wet noodle of a Zanpakuto was ineffective.  He yells at Ichigo and everyone else all the time about how they’re so dumb or weak, [Ch.54, Ch.95, Ch.141, Ch.292, etc.] when in reality he’s never done anything useful except carry Rukia away AFTER Ichigo busted in to save the day and did some bad-ass shit like take out three vice captains bare-handed before they could even draw their swords. [Ch.152] I’m not a big fan of Ichigo either, but at least he gets stuff done and doesn’t fail at every endeavor.

I also blame Renji for the fact that Chad is constantly getting his butt handed to him. After all, Renji was Chad’s sparring partner. [Ch. 224] Which is unfortunate because Chad actually shows some promise and developed some pretty awesome powers. However, even though Chad tends to be on the losing end of fights (mostly because he seems to get matched up against someone way more powerful than those his friends fight) he does at least win some of the time on his own, so thus he’s better than Renji.

His captain, Byakuya, is also fan-girl fodder, but at least he is a bad-ass mofo who tends to beat the snot out of anyone who gets in his way and look good while doing it. What could Renji do against him? Pretty much nothing as we saw when he squared off against Byakuya during the Soul Society story arc. When Renji finally comes around and decides that Rukia shouldn’t be executed, he is confronted by Byakuya who intends to let the execution go through. Byakuya chides Renji saying he’s just an animal looking up at the moon, but just like that moon his fangs will never touch him. [Ch. 142] After a lot of failed attempts he managed to scrape Byakuya’s hand or something [Ch. 144] and that’s with Byakuya essentially going easy on him while Renji was going all out do or die style. Granted, Byakuya’s a captain and one of the more powerful ones at that, but still, Renji’s one of the few non-captains to have achieved Bankai and all he could manage was a scratch? Weak.

I guess that one thing Renji’s good at is taking a beating, but he’s not even among the best at that. Ichigo and Kenpachi take a hell of a lot more punishment than him and they keep on ticking (most of the time anyway). What I’d LOVE to see in the upcoming chapters is someone from soul society die at the hands of one of the Espada. It’d be great if it was a vice captain, and I think Renji would be a prime candidate. That could be the one thing he’d actually be useful for, breaking the hearts of fan girls everywhere while adding a bit of grittiness to the story. It would also show that Soul Society isn’t invincible. He’s a major enough character that it would have a lasting impact on readers and he is connected to enough characters in the story to push some development in them. C’mon Kubo, make me proud! Extra points if you have Gin/Tousen/Aizen do it.

renji, bleach, byakuya, BL, yaoi, doujinshi

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Why not?

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GUEST REVIEW BY BOXING OCTOPUS AND LOTHOS

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann doesn’t have anything extra special about it. We have a young boy who is influenced by his older male friend to become awesome one day and do whatever he wants; a strong female character with a ridiculously large gun and very small bikini; an obnoxiously weak love interest female character; a few dozen ancillary characters that are poorly set up; bad guys that do really well at first, and then fail miserably; giant robots that combine with each other and fight other giant robots; interstellar combat; and made up animals like hippos covered in grapes. It would seem that there is nothing spectacular about Gurren Lagann. However, this show goes from mildly entertaining in the first few episodes to so absurd I can’t not watch the next episode even though I know it’s going to be awful in the end.

I really wanted Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann to be good. Once the show gets rolling the off the wall antics, kinetic animation style, and overall tone of the show will probably remind viewers of FLCL (also by Gainax). The mech designs are cartoony but at the same time pretty cool. Now, I liked FLCL a lot, and I know it tended to be a loved it or hated it type of show and that’s how I think most people are going to react to Gurren Lagann. Really the show draws a lot of parallels to FLCL when you think about it. The characters of Naota and Simon are quite similar, both start out being rather bored with their lives and pretty much just go through the actions of living every day. Then they meet someone by chance who is so far from the norm they can’t help but feel inspired by them. In Naota’s case it was Haruko, for Simon it’s Kamina. They follow this person on their adventures and begin to crave a more meaningful and fuller life. Through them they learn what it is to be a man and stand up for themselves, even if it means doing something they don’t really want to do. I would say probably the main difference between the two shows is that FLCL never really takes itself seriously, they know the stuff going on is ridiculous and don’t really try to explain it in a serious manner. Gurren Lagann, however, likely due to being more than six episodes, attempts to weave a deeper plot but in the end doesn’t really end up explaining any of it. For me that’s why I think I enjoyed FLCL much more than the whole of Gurren Lagann despite the shows being rather similar in presentation.

The show revolves around Simon, the weak and annoying boy from the beginning of the show, and his attempt to overcome impossible odds to let humans live on the surface world which is guarded by comically stupid beast men. He and his older friend Kamina find a robot in their underground village which Simon can pilot and immediately have to use it to fight off another giant robot that has crashed through the earth and into their village, probably crushing several innocent people to death. Luckily, a bouncy, young, gun-happy girl named Yoko comes to help them. They all become great friends. They then join up with some other characters and do some pretty ridiculous stuff.

Simon and crew fight to make a life on the surface world, meeting confrontation with the forces of Lord Genome (the beastmen) and after repeated successes decide to take their fight right to the beastmen capital, the seat of Lord Genome. However, after their battle there they are given an ominous warning foretelling the eventual downfall of all mankind from an even bigger threat than the beastmen, which is the basis of the last half of the series. There are a lot of characters in Gurren Lagann. We have the main characters of Simon, Kamina, and Yoko at the start and then a recurring villain named Viral, and a shadowy overlord who is mentioned but we know very little about called Lord Genome. Quickly the cast swells to over 20 recurring characters, some of which have more pivotal roles in the plot and get some actual introduction, others just “appear” and are assumed to just be part of the team performing some function. The story takes place over a relatively long time-frame so it makes sense that there would be a fair number of characters, but it is disappointing that you really don’t get to learn anything about a lot of the characters in the series. We’re introduced to Nia, a girl who Simon happens upon about a third of the way through the series, who acts as the constant optimist through much of the series but is otherwise there to act as the damsal in distress. She’s not a total sack of moe, which is nice, but she’s not really a dynamic character either. Really, few of the characters in the series display much in the way of growth except maybe Simon.

So, I will now share with you how to make it through all 27 episodes of Gurren Lagann:

  • Watch the first 20 episodes. This step isn’t actually necessary unless you want to know a few of the characters’ backgrounds. Many characters don’t have backgrounds at all and are introduced on the fly for no apparent reason, so you may skip this step to save time.
  • Then anytime anything happens that makes no sense, creates a plot hole, makes you wonder “Why the Hell didn’t they just do that in the first place?,” or leads to any other confusion, just say to yourself “Why not?”

I will now demonstrate this method in action. Hey, that robot can rip holes in the time space continuum and use it to travel to whatever thing it focuses on. Why not? That bad robot just took two universes and smashed them together, creating a big bang type reaction, and then threw it at that good robot. Why not? Why is that giant robot wearing sunglasses that he can throw at bad robots? Why not? Wait, shouldn’t they all be dead by now? Why are they still alive? Why not? Did that kid’s pet just spontaneously evolve for no reason, not even to advance the plot? Why not?

Music doesn’t make or break a show for me by any means, but it is something which can really add a lot to a show if it’s good. In FLCL all the music was done by the same group, even though the style of music varied a lot it still had a sense of cohesion and the tone of the songs chosen really reflected in an auditory sense the tone of what was happening at that time. Either through the singer’s raw emotion in the lyrics, the bouncy upbeat rhythm, or a wistful and melancholy piece, the songs chosen as the soundtrack for a particular scene just really worked well in FLCL. But in Gurren Lagann the music is silly and nothing spectacular. It’s definitely no Pillows. The soundtrack is done by various artists, and while some pieces fit the action, others are just bland or at worst seem really out of place. When you have music that really fits it seems like they animated the action for the music. When something doesn’t fit so well it at best seems like they made the music for the animation, at worst it seems like they just picked some music to be playing in the background that doesn’t really have anything to do with what’s happening on the screen. For me this takes away from the action on screen, and like I said, while it doesn’t turn a mediocre show into something great, or turn a great show into crap, it’s just something which can affect my overall enjoyment of the show.

The final 7 episodes become a montage of “one-uppings” that far exceed the realm of being highly implausible and venture more into the absurdly ridiculous. Though, they are highly entertaining to watch, don’t try to tie together any of the events with logic, there is none. Don’t try to form any sense of cohesion between past events and what’s currently happening, there isn’t any. Just sit back, shut off your brain, and enjoy the ride.

Why the Hell not? If you think about this show too much, you may have an aneurysm. If you watch the entire show, you may be disappointed in it overall, but if you only watch the last 7 episodes it will at least be entertaining. The one benefit that I can find to watching the entire show is that you can then watch the Gurren Lagann Parallel Works videos, where the roles and time periods of characters are altered for some short animated segments. Otherwise, Gurren Lagann is a hilariously unexpected disappointment.

Why did Gainax think it was necessary to run this show for 27 episodes, make at least one movie, and these OVA things? Why not? Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann was a show I really wanted to be good, and it started out being good, but it then all collapsed under its own weight and leaves the viewer with a bunch of nonsensical junk at the end. Albeit highly entertaining junk, it just leaves one with the feeling of an incomplete and either rushed or contrived ending. So much so that it makes one wonder what the other 20 episodes were for since they apparently didn’t really matter.

Top 5 WTF?! Moments in Anime
5. Most of FLCL
4. The mushrooms episode of Cowboy Bebop
3. NaruTaru and the “test tube” incident
2. Last 3 episodes of Gurren Lagann
1. Shinji and comatose Asuka in End of Evangelion

NYAF 2008 A Walk Through Artist Alley

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GUEST REPORT BY SKEITH

As I’ve been going to cons over the past half-decade or so, my reason for doing so has changed. Originally, I was there to gaze at the cosplayers and meet people that (gasp) actually shared my interest for this niche entertainment. Eventually I graduated to actually cosplaying. With that out of my system, I settled down and now spend most of my time at panels or Artists Alley.If I could, I would probably spend the entire day at an Artists Alley, talking with the many interesting people who come from far and wide to set up shop. But that was not possible at the New York Anime Fest, not only because the alley closed with the dealers room, but because there were several things it lacked to make it an immersive place.

For starters, the podcasters’ alley, which complimented the AA quite nicely last year, was not present. I thought there was a good flow, going from one group to the other, since they are both amateur mediums and they both are groups that seem to be just as interested in sharing their art as they were selling you something.

Also, there seemed to be a short supply of manga and comics in the alley. Ever since I first stumbled upon “Directions of Destiny” at Otakon several years ago, I make it a point to purchase at least one book from each alley I visit. Though the pickings seemed to be slim here. Only about four or five tables actually displayed a manga or comic prominently, and of those only 2 caught my eye for a deeper look. One was a colorful comic-strip with fantasy characters, and the other one was a Suikoden doujinshi which gets my attention by default.

Being able to engage the artists in conversation is probably paramount in importance to making a great Artists Alley. Otakon makes for the best alley because it’s so large and the visitors are spread out; that lets you talk more easily. NYAF’s alley lacked size, and that means the artists were flooded by lookey-loos. Even though most of the people weren’t actually buying anything, it was hard to engage any of the artists in a conversation for long, let alone ask for a sketch after I bought their stuff.

None of this is to say that the quality of the art was anything but great. While the overall size was smaller, the ratio of good to mediocre artists was better than anyplace I’ve been to before. There was a fairly wide variety of art styles as well, from gritty western comic styles to super-shiny eastern ones. I was also embarrassingly gleeful at finding several great pieces of Pokemon art. There was also a good variety of trinkets crammed in there, from buttons and patches to window stickers.

Though technically not part of the alley, the adjacent booth for Alteil.com (my favorite CCG) became part of my art hunt. As the game is founded on tapping famous anime/fantasy artists for every card, they gave away several beautiful posters and postcards. I was also able to meet the entire American crew even got their artist to draw a sketch for me.

While I felt the Artists Alley was strong, it wasn’t something you could list as a big reason for going to this con. The limited number of people and the fact that it was pressed right next to the loud, though not very busy, dealers room really detracted from the alley experience. In short, I felt it was tacked on and wasn’t given the respect it deserves.