30-Day Video Game Music Challenge Day 25: Pumped

“Music that gets you pumped”

Also music to get slaughtered by.

My 10 Favorite Anime OPs of the 1990s

These are the ones most of my nostalgia is for.

10. King of Braves GaoGaiGar, “Yuusha Oh Tanjou!” by Masaaki Endoh

To be on the safe side, people with epilepsy might want to look away for the part from 0:36 to 0:45.

Awesome Music Thursday: Mimikyu’s song

If you haven’t been following the news for Pokemon Sun & Moon, that’s okay. Because this is the best possible introduction for the best new Pokemon, the Ghost/Fairy type Mimikyu.

 

Science of Anime: Size Changing

This is a topic that was already well-covered in The Physics of Superheroes. But while The Atom and Ant-Man/Giant-Man/Too-Many-Names-Man have size changing as their explicit super power, a lot of anime (and near-anime) characters do it incidentally, as a part of other transformations. Of course, so does the Hulk.

For example, Devilman is considerably taller as the demon Amon than as the human Akira. (Or in Mazinger Z vs. Devilman, much taller.) Well, at least he’s supernatural.

Science of Anime: Capsules and Poke Balls

Some anime, especially certain shounen series, seem to have a “throw it in” mentality. They have all kinds of individual elements whose presence in the series seems unrelated to anything else in the series. This results in some really unique worldbuilding.

Dragon Ball is a great example. At it’s core, the central premise of the early parts of the series was “loosely based on Journey to the West and has magic balls that summon a wish-granting dragon”. But just look at everything we see within just the early episodes. Dinosaurs! Hovercars! Animal people! Whatever the heck Puar is! Transforming at the full moon! Then we get robots (including Arale from Dr. Slump), a manwolf (which is not the same thing as a wolfman), someone whose personality and hair color change when she sneezes, and Krillin being able to smell at first but then not after he’s reminded that he doesn’t have a nose. (Okay, that last one falls under Looney Tunes territory.)

Inspector Green Tag

I’m not sure I really get what this one is about, but Nikki also tagged me for the Inspector Green Tag, which, despite the fact that it can’t be very old, is something that no one seems to know the origin of.

1. When was the last time you went to a store containing anime?

Probably about a month, and that was a used bookstore. There’s no store near where I am that has a really good anime selection.

2. Do you usually watch anime online? On what website?

Sometimes. Different sites, but I think I’ve watched more on Hulu than on any one anime-specializing site.

Video Game Challenge Day 15: Most addictive

“Most addictive game”

It could easily be Tetris, but the fact that I spent around 500 hours on Dragon Quest IX and a combined thousands of hours playing various Pokemon games makes me lean toward one of those two.

DQIX actually has in-game accolades for things like “play 1000 hours” and even “play 1000 hours in multiplayer”.

30 Day Anime Challenge Day 29: Wish Was Real

“An anime you wished was real”

For the most part, whether it’s because of cities being destroyed in the series, post-apocalyptic settings, or the idea of just anybody having access to tremendous destructive power, I wouldn’t want most anime to be real.

The first good “safe” answer I thought of was My Neighbor Totoro. That way a lot of cool magic stuff gets to be real without Tokyo being underwater or tennis games being able to cause mass extinctions.

Pokemon being real would be even better; it’s just as safe (in actual practice, anyway; events that could have been disastrous have happened) and just about about everyone has Pokemon.

But there’s one other that, while not quite as free of potentially deadly conflict, might be just about as good: Astro Boy. Sure there’s enough anti-robot sentiment to get conflict out of it, but overall it’s one of the most optimistic views of the future around, anime or otherwise.

30 Day Anime Challenge Day 28: Favorite Quote

“Favorite quote from any anime character”

The things I’m most likely to intentionally quote would be things that are like catchphrases or taglines, but that doesn’t mean those are actually my favorite lines.

And I already named the scene with Simon’s “My Bro is dead” speech as my favorite scene.

30 Day Anime Challenge Day 20: On My Nerves

“Anime character that gets on your nerves”

There are two entirely different ways I could go with this. Do I name someone who’s just plain annoying because of running gags that aren’t actually funny? Or a character who keeps making bad decisions so often I want to slap them? Maybe one of each.