JOURNAL: Arigatomina

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  • kiddie porn banners 2005-04-07 18:05:12 Yeah, yeah, everyone complains about the banners at one point or another. Here's my go.

    I like anime with big eyes and elfin faces - I like it in shoujo and shonen anime. But half of the big-eyed girls on the banners lately look like babies, I'm talking full out "Gerber Baby food" babies. They're creepy, infantile, and - disturbingly often - dressed in slutty clothes or wearing "come do me but please be gentle I'm so so young" expressions.

    I know there are child-porn fans on this site, the ones who actually like watching anime porn with 4yr old anime girls. But I thought they were the minority. Where are all these baby girls coming from, and why?

    Bring back the big-breasted *ADULT* women if you want the female fanservice. This is like stumbling onto a shota or a hentai site. I can only imagine what a random visitor thinks when he or she glances up and sees a chibi girl crooking her finger for some action. It isn't even a good representation of the amvs here - I haven't seen more than two vids that feature little-girl fanservice. So why are there so many of these type banners lately?

    I may watch some...explicit anime, but they feature adults, not children, and NEVER prepubescents. 
  • indirect links added 2005-04-03 21:17:02 After getting to the point where I have to email vids to myself and then give the passwords out so people can download them, I decided it's really repetitious. So I've cleaned out one of my email accounts to serve as 'outsource' for the vids. For those who actually have large email accounts, I can just forward the vids to them. It saves me 4hrs uploading the same vids as attachments for each person who wants them. And those who've had strange problems (their email accounts not letting them download attachments), I can just send to the account instead of sending the vids to them.

    I know, it's sad when I can upload a 4.5 mb attachment, but I can't upload the same file to my website. It just keeps timing out. That's a recent problem, most certainly on my side, but it's very annoying.

    The only real drawback I see is that my old "no longer available" vids are not technically available. Blegh. Maybe I should put a note up asking people not to review the indirect versions. The quality is naturally horrid at such small filesize, and really - they're not on local for a very good reason.

    Lots of trouble. I'm hoping this will stave off the emails asking for unavailable vids. It could be worse, after all, I could tell them to use a P2P program. ;p Even vid #9 managed to slip out over WinMX last year. I think I'll go ahead and put it in the emails with the other vids - it's listed on my website, so they know it exists. 
  • RK manga 2005-03-26 01:00:11 I'm not actually done with it yet, but I don't look forward to finishing it so I doubt my opinion will change if I read the rest.

    I like Rurouni Kenshin, and I was quick to decide the anime following the Kyoto arc was bad. The reasoning went stupid, the characters were flat or even out-of-character (for that to happen *in* the actual anime, you know there's a problem), and the plot was just poor. I thought - well, that part of the anime wasn't based on the manga, so that's probably why it was so bad compared to the early arcs. So I went to read the manga. Know what? I still think the anime should have ended after the Kyoto arc. Even in the manga, the reasoning has gone stupid, the characters are melodramatic (not flat, the opposite extreme), and the plot is cliche to a point that I'm embarrassed reading it. What happened?

    They took a strong story villain and the strongest arc in the anime - the Kyoto arc - and did one of the most common cliches in storytelling. They decided to make a new villain who was actually behind everything in that successful arc - the real mastermind behind it all, super-villain!! Er...

    Then they decide, the main character isn't angsting enough so let's add onto his past and make our supervillain even more horrible by giving the hero guilt in regards to him.

    I admit, I was surprised that the manga never mentioned Kenshin's wife, it's so canon that I didn't realize they made her up to compliment the supervillain arc. Her entire purpose in RK is to fuel that arc. There were discrepencies - holes if you like - in the series so they took this opportunity to fill them in, again, solely to fuel this supervillain storyline.

    Kenshin's scar. He showed no significant emotion toward that scar in the manga, not a single line or expression. Not until the Kyoto arc ended and he had to come up with a new adventure. To suddenly give the scar such an important history, significance beyond an identifying marker, is to ignore the behavior pattern set by the first part of the story. If Kenshin's wife had given him that scar, he would have felt those emotions from the moment he first showed up in Tokyo. He didn't. Why? Because the creator didn't make that up until later.

    There's nothing wrong with fleshing out a character's history after you've already started writing the story. But you have to keep it consistent with the behavior and facts you've already established. Otherwise, it's a blatant contradiction and lowers the quality of the work as a whole. It's like suddenly deciding Kenshin wears pink in the anime because the color reminds him of his dead mother. No one would believe that. Why? Because there's nothing to show that in months worth of story and character development. That's why we use foreshadowing to make our 'revelations' believable - the readers can say "Oh! So that's why he was peculiar about that! It makes so much sense now!"

    Instead it's like - "Uh, now you're saying Kenshin's face is scarred because he feels bad about it? Are you on crack? Have you never looked at the difference between a scar on someone's face and one on a muscled part of the body? Yeah, a scar on your arm will fade with time. But cuts through a part of your flesh that is less than 1/4 of an inch thick - the thin skin over your skull - those scars stay with you for life. Common sense. And since when does Kenshin feel bad when he thinks about his scar? People have been pointing it out and talking about it since he was first introduced. Now all of the sudden it's psychosomatic? Why should we believe that when there's been no evidence of it up to this point? It actually contradicts the character we've been paying so much attention to."

    It's a blatant plot device made up after-the-fact. I can only wonder if the creator honestly thought his readers wouldn't notice that none of this 'newly created' history affected his hero before he revealed it. Are we supposed to be morons? I watched for some mention, some reflection of that past when I read the first part of the manga - because I knew his 'canon' history. Now I know why I never saw any of it. He didn't make it up until he needed a new adventure to work in.

    Let's not disregard the copycat nature of the post-kyoto arc. We have the supervillain (even stronger than Shishio, he was actually the mastermind behind Shishio's power, whoah...). We have the tachi, each with his own little motives and special techniques (can we say Aoshi's followers, or should we say Shishio's followers?). Oh, but here's a twist - they don't love the supervillain, he's just using them. But wait...Usui didn't love Shishio either. And of course we can't forget the guilty Kenshin syndrome - instead of fearing his killer past, he's fearing his...er...killer past. Okay, so that's the same. Um...now he's worried about his loved ones being targetted because of him! That's new, right??? Uh...no, that's pretty much what happened in the Kyoto arc. Darn. What's new, what's new...um.... Got it! The past! He had a wife and her brother's pissed at him, that's new! Whoot! Too bad that's the part of the arc that is the weakest and most contradictory to the rest of the story.

    Make up a background that fits with the character you've established. Months living with Kaoru and not a single flashback of his wife. Months of attention on his scar and not a single wince over how he got it. Months spending time with Yahiko and not a single flashback of his wife's little brother. The 'new' history is unprecedented. Either none of that really matters to Kenshin - in which case he was fickle and is only now deciding to feel guilty about this hidden past - or it wasn't an issue because it didn't exist until the creator needed a new arc.

    Now I'm even more set against the ovas than I was before. I thought they were based on the manga - a history that was shadowed in the manga from start to finish. I didn't know they were based entirely upon the post-Kyoto arc. Distasteful. It's like Dragonball GT, instead of reinventing the characters for an unrealistic future, they're reinventing the characters for an unrealistic (and unprecidented) past.

    Very very disappointed...I thought the manga would make me like the 'behind the rurouni' storyline. Why didn't anyone tell me it was invented like a poorly executed sequel? Sure, Dragonball GT is cuter than dbz, and the characters are stronger, but the story is weak and an insult to the original. He should have stopped at the Kyoto arc and jumped straight to a future 'epilogue' of the characters. Reinventing the past is a quick way to destroy your credibility as a storyteller. 
  • what the hell 2005-03-24 22:40:19 I'm not putting this in the thread - I'm hoping my reviewers will read this and be warned. I appreciate your feedback.

    reforming reviewers:
    http://www.animemusicvideos.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=48687

    They want to have conversations with their reviewers, natural, not much to ask. But read closely what they want to get from these conversations - reviewer reform.

    Note that all but two of the people asking for this are ones who don't review often - they're speaking as receivers who'd like to change the type of reviews they get. None are looking at it from a reviewer perspective.

    Who says reviewers want to argue their opinions back and forth, or that they'd be willing to change their reviews after listening to you tell them how they *should* be reviewing? That's the idea here - to teach them how to give better reviews, to educate them so eventually the overall average will go down and they'll understand your creative process well enough to be proper judges. It's all for the benefit of those receiving reviews, not the ones giving feedback.

    If this goes into effect, will the supporters review more, or just spend more time educating the reviewers giving them feedback?

    I have no problem with being educated if my teachers will practice what they preach. If you're qualified to tell others how they should review videos, I expect you to be damned proficient and consistent at reviewing videos yourself. Half the people pushing this don't review at all or leave 200 word ops. A few give longer ops (people I *know* are very useful), but they give few of them - and these are people who've been members for years, plenty of time to have spread their wisdom in reviews. They haven't. But they want to tell reviewers how to do it right.

    I just don't see any benefit as a reviewer. I know the ability to respond to a response is there, but I choose not to use it. If you want me to understand your creative process, put it in the vid description - I swear I'll read every single word before watching the video. Tell me after the fact and it's just interesting information to know - it won't change my review or the way I review. And if you had lectured me when I was a new reviewer, you'd have killed any motivation I had to keep giving reviews.

    The real goal of this seems to be to weed out the 'bad' reviewers and educate the ones who have the potential to be 'useful' reviewers. If that's what you want, just make it so no one can review without taking a test first. Make a standard, make them qualify to give you feedback. I know everyone thinks the opinion system is crap and useless and should be reformed. But you don't raise the average of the school by taking each student outside slapping him around for a few minutes every time he opens his mouth. You give a class and lecture them as a group - those who don't pass the test don't get to the next level (the right to give you feedback).

    If you want reform, take big steps, be open about the goals. And above all, teach by example. I don't want to learn from a dance instructor who can't dance, and I'm sure as hell not letting my children pay to be lectured on proper community service from someone who's never served.

    Why is it so hard to accept feedback as a gift?

    No one is obligated to give you the feedback you want, no one needs to be an expert to say if they like or dislike your video. If the review system is just to serve the creators, pay people to serve them, pay for training so they serve them well, fire the ones who do a bad job at giving you what you want. If it's feedback given from those considerate enough to tell you what they thought, then treat it like the gift it is.

    You're not just looking the gift horse in the mouth, you're yelling at the giver for not giving you a thoroughbred. wtf.

    I'm grateful to the people who take time to give me feedback. They have no obligation to me, and I thank them for giving me their time free of charge. Time is precious. If you have the time to complain about not getting good enough reviews, go write one yourself. If you're an expert, go be an expert and show them how it's done. They'll never leave you another review after that.

    Some of us still do this for fun. You want to make reviewing a job? Then pay your workers. If your reviewers aren't satisfying you, tell them how useless and uneducated they are and I promise - PROMISE - they won't bother you again.

    Give them a way to block everyone but their peers from reviewing their videos. Don't ruin it for the rest of us who see reviews as free feedback, no obligations, no expectations.

    I review because I don't have to, there is no standard I have to 'live up to' that I don't make myself. I won't conform my gift to suit your wants. If my feedback isn't good enough for you, that's fine. I'll give it to someone else. And you can see how many reviewers you alienate when you start lecturing them on how to give better gifts. 
  • er... 2005-03-21 18:20:56 India's in California~!

    /dies

    I'm going back to school~!

    /dies

    Er, yeah. I'm going to get my boss to fire me so I can collect unemployment for a month while I set things up. Then I'm going back to college, Graduate School or wherever it is you go after getting a 4yr degree. Seems making under $10,000 a year is pretty sad. So I'm off to become a college professor. I'll probably have to be an English/Writing teacher since that's what I got a degree in, but I'd like to teach a Calculas class if possible. I figure I can get a certificate for writing, and maybe they'll toss me a few general math classes on the side. It doesn't really matter in the long run, I'd just prefer to teach more than one subject. That's why I'd rather teach at a college level - high school teachers tend to be limited more. The widest I've seen was a teacher who taught the Spanish classes and the English writing classes, and he wasn't very good at either of them. ^_^;; He's a nice guy, he just wasn't really smart enough to be teaching. It was a hick school, so they didn't notice.

    I'm not sure where I'll go, or what sort of schooling I'm looking at having to take. And yes, I know it's overconfident to think it's that easy to be a teacher. But honestly, school - whether it's college or graduate school - it's still just school. I've never had problems in school so long as I don't mess with the advanced sciences. And I'm probably older than the other students will be (I'm 25), but I still look 17 (and probably will for 5 more years). Actually doing interviews for a position after the extra schooling, now that will be the difficult part. ^_^; 
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