After yesterday, we need Shugo Chara fan art.
Art
After yesterday, we need Shugo Chara fan art.
‘Shugo Chara!’
Surprisingly sophisticated but unfortunately creepy.
Shugo Chara!
Shugo Chara!, Shugo Chara! Doki, and Shugo Chara! Party!, directed by Kinji Yasuta. Satelight and TV Tokyo, –. 127 episodes of 25 minutes (approx. 53 hours). Not rated. Available on Crunchyroll.
In Revolutionary Girl Utena, Kunihiko Ikuhara’s magnum opus, there are several screwball gag episodes dedicated to the side character Nanami, a spoiled rich girl who laughs inappropriately—a requisite character in shoujo anime. In the most fascinating of these gag episodes, Nanami awakens one morning to find an Easter egg in her bed. Convinced that she laid it, she at first tries to hide its existence but, on account of some misunderstood conversations, eventually concludes that egg-laying is normal for girls. In keeping with the coming-of-age theme of magical-girl shows in general and Utena in particular, the egg becomes a multivalent symbol by turns representing puberty, menstruation, childbirth, and child-rearing.
This one-off episode apparently inspired another whole magical-girl franchise, Shugo Chara!, by Banri Sendo and Shibuko Ebara, the two-woman manga-ka team known collectively as Peach-Pit. They got their start with works aimed primarily at a male audience: The little-known harem comedy Prism Palette, the raunchy magical-girlfriend series DearS (which is sort of like Chobits with more bondage), and an action series called Zombie-Loan. In the U.S., probably their most famous title is Rozen Maiden, an unusually classy harem series that’s like a cross between Pinocchio and Highlander with a veneer of Gothic horror. It’s spawned internet memes and a modest cult following.
Art
Featured image: “Mahou Shoujo Miwa Magica” by HazelRuko.
Art and Update
Featured image: “Those Mahou Shoujo Messiahs” by Ruri-dere.
To let you know what’s up, chapter 26 of Jake and the Dynamo is (finally) off to my writer’s group, so it will appear on the blog in the near future.
I’m writing a novelette tonight, and then in the near future I need to finalize the extra extra story that’s going in Down and Out in Fifth Grade, the first fully illustrated Jake and the Dynamo novel. The editor I wanted has agreed to take me on, and she can get to it in mid-June. So that gives me enough time to get the extra material put together and get things squared away with Roffles Lowell, the illustrator, as well as get the ball rolling on the cover art.
In other news, I’ve got a lot of schoolwork coming up as we’re rapidly approaching the end of the term. And I have a new job.
So things are moving, if more slowly and haphazardly than I’d like. But it’s coming together.
I hope to have a new, fairly extensive review up in time for Easter. There’s a particular magical girl franchise I’ve been meaning to discuss at length, and Easter is the right time to do it. In fact, one of the magical girls in the above image is from the franchise I have in mind. If you can guess which girl it is based on the hint that it’s related to Easter, you can win the grand prize of ONE INTERNET, which I will award immediately.
And Then They Danced
I’m working on a Rag & Muffin novelette where much of the action takes place at a formal ball. I was hunting for some information to improve the verisimilitude and came upon this video of the Stanford Viennese Ball Opening Committee performing a dance to the “Morning Paper Waltz” of Johann Strauss Jr.
I wanted to share it not only because it’s a lovely performance, but also because all of the men are wearing what, as far as I can tell, is proper white tie, though I think one fellow’s had his shirttails come out in the back.
Giant Robot Battle Scheduled for August
In other news, Suidoboshi Heavy Industries and MegaBots, Inc., have finally scheduled their mecha battle for some time in August, as reported in The Nerdist.
In case you didn’t know, both of these companies, the former from Japan and the latter from the USA, built giant robots as hugely expensive toys, the KURATAS and Mark II, respectively. MegaBots challenged Suidoboshi to a giant robot fight quite some time ago. I saw the original MegaBots challenge and Suidoboshi’s somewhat muted acceptance thereof back in 2015, but hadn’t heard anything since.
In the beginning, the Mk. II looked likely to take the KURATAS apart, as it was created to be a hulking beast, whereas the KURATAS was more of a rich kid’s toy. Both companies, however, have apparently upgraded their machines. MegaBots has released video of their new but incomplete Mk. III picking up and tearing apart cars, whereas Suidoboshi has kept its upgrades to the KURATAS a secret.
Both these machines are designed to be piloted, but I hope, for the fight, they set it up so the pilots are not actually inside, since they’re hinting of weapons like chainsaws and drills.
Okay, I Won’t Do Any More of These After This
Okay, seriously, I should not have been drinking while watching this. I struggled hard not to do a real-life spit take.
It’s Back!
The Mary Sue Awakens: Now with Finger Puppets
[VIDEO SHOULD BE HERE]
I cannot believe it. I cannot freaking believe it.
There’s a popular YouTube channel called Bad Lip Reading, which dubs inexplicably hilarious gibberish over clips from movies and TV shows. In one of their most creative works to date, they produced a Bad Lip Reading of that Star Wars movie that came out sometime back, the one I think was called A Newer Hope: Starring Ensign Mary Sue. In addition to the dubbing, they had added blacked-gloved hands over some scenes of Kylo Ren so that he appears to be threatening Han Solo with finger puppets.
Also, Mark Hamill did the voice of Han Solo.
The video was up this morning, and I watched it. It sounds like something I might have made up, but it was real, as you can see here.
This evening, I meant to share it with you, but the video is now gone. This seems odd, since other videos, including previous Star Wars parodies, are still up on Bad Lip Reading’s channel.
According to the placeholder for where the video used to be, the copyright infringement claim came from something called Dramatists Play Service.
I’ve never heard of that, either, so I found their website. According to the mission statement, Dramatists Play Service “was created to foster national opportunities for playwrights by publishing affordable editions of their plays and handling the performance rights to these works.”
The hell?
Maybe they quoted a famous play in the video. If they did, I didn’t notice. I’d go look for it except, oh, the video’s gone. Somebody’s got a lawyer and no sense of fun.
At least there’s still this:
Oh, and by the way, we’ll have a special review in time for Easter.
Everything I Needed to Know I Learned from Magical Girls
I ran across this amusing meme while looking up stuff for some of my earlier posts over the weekend.
Back in the day, it used to be standard for Saturday morning cartoons to present some kind of heavy-handed life lesson, usually in a segment at the end where the characters would break the fourth wall and preach at the audience. On occasion, these segments could take on a life of their own, as anyone who has heard the phrase, “And knowing is half the battle,” can attest.
The DiC dub back the mid-90s added such a segment to the first two seasons of Sailor Moon, even after it had gone out of style, but the above image aptly explains why that was a bad idea. Sailor Moon is a wish-fulfillment fantasy, but Sailor Moon is not a role model. If you want the stuff Usagi has, acting like Usagi is the last thing you should do: for the most obvious example, you don’t get the Sailor Moon bod by following the Sailor Moon diet, but other examples could be multiplied.
The manga’s worse. There’s actually a chapter in there in which she’s on the phone, lying to her parents that she’s having a sleepover at Makoto’s apartment … when she’s actually sleeping with her boyfriend.
And this was a comic ostensibly aimed at twelve-year-old girls. I wouldn’t let my daughter read it. She might get ideas.