One of the biggest challenges for any junior miner at PDAC is drawing investor attention to your booth (especially at times like this, when markets are volatile and all the juniors are having a rough time). So it goes without saying that companies are always trying to outdo each other with various incentives to draw some attention, whether they be food, coffee, “booth babes” or something else.
玉響～Hitotose (literally Sound of Jade～ One year?) has been an anticipated shin-ban anime for me since mid-year. For me, Tamayura’s main attraction is its fantastic cast including some of my favorite seiyuus: Taketatsu Ayana (who voiced Azusa in K-on!/!!), Asumi Kana, Fukui Yukari and Majima Junji. Talking about Majima Junji, for old fans of Memories Off series (originally created by the now bankrupt KID) like me, it is really nice to see him appearing in so many high-profile titles recently (Hidan no Aria and Hanasaku Iroha). Eventually, Memories Off 1 was his debut work as Minaho Shin, a character we MO fans all so dearly love and respect. Now back to Tamayura.
Here you have it, TAMAYURA!!
The Op immediately told me that Tamayura belongs to one of those “cure” animes. Though being somewhat mediocre in composition, both the Op and Ed songs are performed by high-profile J-pop artists: Op お帰りなさい (Welcome Home)by Sakamoto Maya, and Ed 神様のいたずら (The Trick of Fate) by Nakashima Ai. The story so far follows the life of Sawatari Fuu (nicknamed and called throughout the anime as ぼって Botte) on her moving back to the town of Takehara, where her deceased cameraman father used to run a photo shop (yes, a dying business along with Kodak in the digital age I guess). The first episode mainly covered Botte’s decision to move out from her mom’s, face up the death of her father, pack along the Rollei camera and return to Takehara where her childhood friends are waiting. Sounds somewhat familiar? Well we’ve all had our shares of Japanese drama don’t we… Story wise, the show sets “photography” as its main topic (like “music” in K-on!, per se). I would expect later episodes to dig a little on the techniques and insights on photography, as Botte retraces the photos her father took, which have documented the precious moments of her childhood. So far, the only thing about photography mentioned is “tamayura”, or the little circle of lights that represent “happiness”. Well, I thought we’d go to that bloody Star Trek film for a lens flare fes…
The group of four friends, who are not exactly camera-shy thanks to Botte-chan
The drawing of Tamayura mostly adopts a simple, straight-forward style, which works both ways. The characters are minimal and manga like, which fits quite well with the small-town, nostalgic feeling the show attempts to deliver. However, sometimes the drawing looks a little rougher than what would have been preferred, especially for close-up shots of characters. Based on real locations, the background drawing is good and detailed. You could almost imagine how much photo-shootings and Photoshopping have been going on : D… Don’t take me wrong though, to Photoshop pictures of real locations into manga/anime background still requires a ton of work, and could easily go wrong. The team behind Tamayura is doing quality work in this respect.
Voila, 100% realistic local scenery of Seto Inland Sea guaranteed. Beautiful place indeed
Let me expand a little bit on the point of background. Just like Hanasaku Iroha earlier this year, Tamayura’s story does have a location-a very specific one. The story unfolds in the municipality of Takehara, to the east of Hiroshima City in Hiroshima Prefecture. Even in the advertisement for the show, Takehara and “the scenery of Seto Inland Sea” have been labeled as sell-points. From the travel boost to Noto Peninsula triggered by Hanasaku Iroha, we can see a flourishing scene of anime acting as advertisements for locales around Japan. The Tamayura team definitely has the goal of promoting Hiroshima Prefecture in mind. In the first episode, when Botte took the Kure-line to Takehara, and saw the big word “Okaerinasai” printed on ground at the train station, I could almost feel the tear-inspiring power of the scene as a successful tourism ad. It is a good thing though, since both Noto and Hiroshima are most definitely awesome places to visit, despite the latter being nuked around 70 years ago (it is currently one of the largest metro in West Japan, so no worries of radiation). I would also like to mention that South of Hiroshima and West of Takehara lies the famous Kure port, and the famous Etajima Naval College. Why should I mention that? Well, setting up for a Zipang review… xD. Anyways, we’ll see how much attention Tamayura will attract.
Shocking 1: This is about 2 minutes into the first episode. Almost turned my browser off at that moment... Shocking 2: This thing (actually a cat) is voiced by Fukui Yukari... kay I give in
For me, a painfully felt weakness of Tamayura is its somehow lackluster script that lacks consistency and proper pacing expected in similar titles. Judging from the first two episodes, there are numerous gags/comedy moments acted out in chibi characters, which are critical elements of Botte’s “daily happy life” I guess. However in Tamayura, weight of the story line surrounding loss of family and childhood nostalgia are so heavy, that they entirely set the pace of story-telling. The gag moments, in comparison, are either too abrupt or too weak to carry the flow. The more “serious” lines are not that satisfactory either. At the end of the second episode, for instance, there is the sudden “re-conciliation” with the teacher character voiced by Majima Junji, which is hardly anything “touching” and feels rushed and unnecessary. For an overall beautiful anime, these out of place moments and weak lines are truly regrettable. My hope is that as the drama picks up (something that Tamayura might never do, being based on a 4-coma), there will be more consistency in the flow…
Gags! Oh gags...
Despite the above mentioned flaw, I would keep on watching Tamayura, even just for the sake of its great Seiyuu cast, and Seto Inland Sea of course.
… till life returns to normal.
Being “abnormal” doesn’t mean an “anime deficit”, since dinner time is always the best excuse for an episode or two… Recent watching include a promising new release (“shinban”) Tamayura （玉響 or “the sound of jade”）, classics Zipang and The Story of Saiunkoku.
Another thing worth mentioning is an exploit from a visit to local Japanese book store: a hundred-page color illustration book featuring Fujishima Kousuke interviewing 6 anime/manga creator on character design (among them Maeda Jun on Angel Beats!). It costs about a week’s grocery, but worth it anyways : P
The ancient China style character design of Saiunkoku is really inspiring, respect
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Hello Cheap Energy, Hello Brave New World (Forbes Coverage)
This E-cat thing is simply unbelievable! It is so unbelievable that I still suspect it to be a hoax of some kind… The equipments in the videos look almost too simple to be high-tech… not to mention something like Cold Fusion.
If this is true though, it will no doubt change the world, entirely. The economic and political impacts would be huge, just consider the chaos (and reshuffle) that will happen in the energy sector.
All the input needed is a little nickel and hydrogen, and of course the energy conversion mechanism. What you get is ALMOST a perpetual machine. Shocking.
Nickel is a widely available metal and the process doesn’t even require a lot of it. According to the nickelpower website the machine will bring the cost of electricity down to $0.0012/kwh. Also the process doesn’t produce any waste: totally efficient and clean.
Also the articles suggest that since E-cat produces steam, there might be a revival of Sterling Engine on automobiles, ships and even planes. That sure stirs imagination : ) (see picture below)
Andrea Rossi’s CF system is to be tested on Oct. 28th, let’s see what’s going to happen.
does it mean that things like Hal's Moving Castle will be feasible from an energy perspective? (the world's gonna change and I only care about the world of fantasy steam machines...xD)
YESSSSSSSSSSSS!
article here.
Quote:
Remember when Netscape went public in 1995, kicking off a torrent of investment in new Internet companies that lasted for five years? Well, now we’re waiting for another Netscape-caliber IPO: the first public stock offering by Facebook, which is expected to come sometime next year. The deal will no doubt value the company at tens of billions of dollars, or more, and make many, many people into multi-millionaires, if not billionaires.
Except this IPO will spell the end of the party, not the beginning. I’m convinced that the frothiness we’re seeing right now in Silicon Valley cannot last. And it won’t last, I believe, past the point at which Facebook finally sells shares to the public.
Why? One would have to be blind, or have no friends in New York, London or Shanghai, to not realize that Silicon Valley is currently operating in a different reality. In Silicon Valley, office space is scarce, engineering graduates are commanding record salaries and homes are being purchased before the “For Sale” sign has even gone up. The number of startups formed in the last two years dwarfs the company formation pace of the late 1990s. And high-growth companies are receiving private financings at valuations – many over $1 billion – that could only have been achieved a decade ago by going public and beating Wall Street’s estimates over several years.
But here’s the disconnect, which is obvious to everyone: We are in midst of the Great Recession, with 9% U.S. unemployment, European default risk, growth in China slowing and state governments on the brink of bankruptcy. Yet young technology companies with unproven management teams and business models are commanding nosebleed valuations. The most recent example is blogging startup Tumblr, which raised money valuing it, reportedly, at $800 million. This despite the fact that the company doesn’t have its business model figured out yet. Many of these investments are being justified by the anticipation of some highly lucrative, initial-public offerings for tech companies in the coming 12 months. If standouts like Facebook, Zynga, Groupon and Twitter are going to go public for tens of billions of dollars, the argument goes, surely lesser tech stars can command a premium in their financings as well.
Totally true, but what’s more important is that people are simply reluctant to buy any story, not with their own cash at the very least.
…you click on a visual novel, 18x or not, and start reading it from a load file you don’t even remember exist on a Saturday evening?
That’s about 10 minutes ago for me… Can’t even remember the names of characters despite having went through the game once. Voice acting by Nonaka Ai is awesome, btw.
メモリズーオフ７
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/a-lie-detector-test-for-online-reviewers-09292011.html
Well, the article is about online reviews for consumer electronics and the likes, which are products that could potentially inflict some serious “buyer’s remorse”.
However, it somehow reminds me of certain less-than-sincere approaches to writing reviews on anime titles… There is no money involved for this one of course, but people sometimes seem determined to keep their true feeling to themselves. Come on, we all know you’ve shed a couple of tears watching 5cm/s, and get emotionally attached to those “cheap romantic plots” more than once!
A quote from the article:
“At Cornell University, researchers focused on finding semantic tics unique to fake reviews. Like the Texan, they went online and hired people to write 400 fake reviews of hotels. Then they used a computer model to compare those reviews with 400 real ones. The truthful reviews tended to talk about the actual physical space, using specific nouns like “floor” and adjectives like “small.” Since spammers weren’t familiar with the look of the hotel, they spent more time talking about themselves, the reasons they went on a trip, and their traveling companions. “The word ‘husband’ is very indicative of deception,” says Myle Ott, a PhD candidate and co-author of the study. When the researchers trained a computer to look for the linguistic signs, it detected 90 percent of the fake reviews. Ott says several websites, including TripAdvisor, have inquired about the team’s findings. “
We should totally do this for anime reviews!!!!!
Random cute Nyanko sensei ftw!!!!!!
Hanasaku Iroha （花咲くいろは, or quite literally How the Flowers Bloom）is one of the best anime series I’ve seen so far this year. Despite the plot runs a little here and there from time to time, it is still a great anime title nonetheless.
Definitely needs a review.
Somehow I feel anyone with trouble finding inspiration for their jobs should watch the anime, Hanasaku just might lend some power and make things better. It is the kind of work from which everyone could learn something.
Personally, one thing I learn from Ohana-chan is to say: I am also bonboru-ing! (僕もぼんぼりまーす！）
The two op songs of Hanasaku Iroha (both by nano.RIPE) have become my “morning transit song” (aka before work song) since about a month ago. : D
Below is an awesome magazine publication page for Hanasaku Iroha, ultra high-res.
…according to my opinion. About 20 songs out of the 50 compiled have been mainstay on my pod, at least for a while… Blundering into this video in the middle of studying (in other words, procrastinating) totally reinvigorates my spirit. It is hard to be a good student, especially when the closest carefree campus life is more than 2 years behind you…
I have been working on the second post for Anime Basics, focusing on seiyuu or voice actors. It’s been a little challenging finding and organizing materials to make it a reasonably good article though. So I decide to carefully, attentively, cautiously, respectfully write the article, with a heart full of love.
: P
