Good Grief, GG!

This little bit of 4chan macro raises some interesting issues for me. I’ve always been ambivalent towards GG; One the one hand, I find their subs to be competently translated and their meme-jokes mildly amusing. On the other, I despise their constant trolling and the irreverent, dismissive attitude they take towards their fans. Of course, that trolling is exactly what makes GG so infamous in the first place. It’s that kind of contradiction that embodies their entire attitude towards fansubbing.

In fact, the exact same thing can be said about 4chan. It’s filled with the most base content the internet has to offer, yet the community still has enough insight and creativity to be considered the heart and soul of the otakusphere. Even those who profess to hate /a/ still spew 4chan terminology and memes, whether they realize it or not. Perhaps us otaku are, by our very nature, contradictory creatures filled with self-loathing.

Or maybe I’m overthinking this whole thing. What do you think?

Time for Baseless Speculation Based on a Season Chart!

And there you have it, the Winter 2012 chart. I won’t indulge in any speculation as to the quality of the upcoming anime, but I will tell you which shows have caught my fancy.

• Black Rock Shooter because noitaminA. And no, I’m not typing that stupid star symbol every time I mention the show’s title.
• Miniskirt Space Pirates because it’s being directed and written by the guy behind Martian Successor Nadesico. Also, the title has a level of frankness I haven’t seen since Snakes on a Plane.
• Daily Lives of High School Boys because I’m still trying to find a male-centric slice of life show with enough fujoshi appeal to challenge the dominance of yuri-subtext “four girl” shows.
• Rinne no Lagrange because mecha. It has a kind of Strike Witches vibe going on though, so I’m a bit wary.

Usually I have more shows I’m interested it, but most of this season’s offerings look rather uninspired based on the admittedly limited information we have thus far. So, do you light novel/manga readers want to hype your favorite franchise and prove me wrong?

Answerman the Advert-man

Y’know, I never really liked the new Answerman on ANN. Zac had a brusque trollish charm; he was an asshole, but he was a funny asshole. Brian, on the other hand, is trying way to hard to present himself as goofily snarky, but still somehow manages to come off as arrogantly pretentious like everybody else on the site. However, his more recent columns have taken a real dive and now seem like nothing more than thinly-disguised advertisements for licensing companies, Funimation in particular. I posted the above image to 4chan to get their reactions, and hoo boy did I get an earful.

Didn’t you know?
ANN likes to see itself as part of the “industry”.
That’s also why they hate fansubs, despite using fansubs.

ANN is just part of the “establishment” if you can even apply that term to something as irrelevant as anime licensing.
Companies own media and there are still people who assume media isn’t just feeding them the views of said companies, more at 11.

I’ll admit, I read the ANN news articles quite a bit and on a daily basis. That said, their opinion articles, reviews and staffers are full of some of the worst hypocrisy this side of the anime fandom. Truly, they give us /a/nons a run for our money.

I can’t disagree with any of these points. I realize that the Fourth Estate is devoid of integrity these days, but I still can’t help feeling a smoldering sense of unease knowing that even my anime news sources are bought and paid for by media conglomerates.

Well, except for 4chan. But that place is just a worthless shithole, right?

The Concept Behind My One Year War RP

Ever since I resumed the identity of TsunTaiga, I’ve been a bit perplexed. I found myself stuck in an RP rut… I wasn’t really relating to any of the new lesbian-centric moe RP universes, all of which I felt had too much fanservice and not enough gravitas. I wanted to experiment with creating my own unique original character, one I could mold and push through character development without derailing an already-existing character. But how was I to do this? Existing ORP went at far too fast a clip for me to keep up with, especially given my limited free time. In the end, I decided the best solution was to create my very own ORP, one that would move at a significantly more relaxed pace. That became the One Year War RP.

Here’s the concept: Over the next year or so, my original character Freyda Ashkenazy will experience Gundam’s One Year War in real-time. One day of IRL time will correspond to one day of RP time, so the war proper will begin on January 3rd, 2012 (or 0079 in the RP). Since she’s looking at the war from a Zeon perspective, that means she’ll be gassing colonies in January, invading Earth in March, fighting Gundams in October and so on. Throughout it all, she’ll evolve from an eager, naive young pilot into a jaded war veteran, all while questioning the ideals and the nation she’s fighting for.

I would like other RPers to join me in this effort. Whether you want to be a Zeon ace pilot, a Federation grunt or a poor, hapless civilian caught up in the chaos, you’re welcome to join. All I ask is that you leave existing canon characters like Char and Amuro out of this, and instead create your own unique personality. I’m planning on making between ten and twenty posts on @ZeonGirl daily, so that’s probably a good pace to match. Bear in mind that the One Year War was an all-encompassing conflict that brought as much devastation to the Gundam world as World War II did to ours, so this will not be a lighthearted RP by any means.

If you’re interested in joining, please let me know in the comments below or on Twitter (@TsunTaiga). You’ll need a Skype account, since I’ll be setting up a chatroom to keep track of everything. Other than that, the only limits are your imagination.