Sunday 28 February 2010

It's Coming Down: Part 3 - And So It Begins...

If I had to sum up what I've read so far, I'd actually be kind of hard pressed for a pithy summary. Mixed I suppose is an appropriate epithet as any. It's not quite the non stop comedy torture cavalcade I was perhaps expecting, but then it's early days yet. I'm 3 chapters in and taking a break to write up the plot for you, my dear reader.

So the story so far. There's this guy, right. And he's like maybe a vampire or something, but we don't really know yet. Thus far he's psychic or something and like, thousands of years old probably. Also he can turn into shadow and can have claws. SPECIAL claws of, I quote, "equal parts fire and primeval silver". Quite if he's meant to be a vampire Wolverine or what has yet to be established. For you see he is MYSTERIOUS.

Anyway, in the prologue our Mystery Sancho is hunting.... some guy. Who is probably bad I guess? Sancho thinks he's bad, though it's never mentioned why exactly. Maybe it isn't important, and Mr Victim only exists to illustrate the fact that Mystery Sancho hunts bad people. Maybe even bad THINGS. THINGS of darkness one would imagine, but it's speculation at this point.

Anyway.... Mr Victim has a hostage! OH NOES! The hostage is also a SPECIAL PERSON. Otherwise known as the female lead character. Obviously she's special. You see with one look Mystery Sancho knows that they are CONNECTED BY GOTHIC DESTINY. The Mr Victim dies and Binto The Wonder Bint falls off the roof. Cut to main titles.

We then start the first chapter proper. Yeah, that was just the prolgue. Probably took me longer to berate it up there than it would to actually read. Go figure. It's fucking cheesy, and there's no getting over it. Now Binto The Wonder Bint (who actually has a name, but frankly I just like using Binto, so thats what I'm sticking with) now has.....

AMNESIA!!!!

She is now the young niave ward of a mysterious Lord (Sancho Von Mystery or something) in Victorian London. Being a nice sort she's doing volunteer work at a charity hospital and trying to learn how to be a doctor rather than take part in the high society to which she is now priviliged and oh my god could you be any more of a walking cliche? However, I should point out that there is actually a bit of quite clever meta humor going on here. See, since Mystery Sancho couldn't let her die in the prologue (because they are CONNECTED BY GOTHIC DESTINY) he got one of his space vampire minions or whatever to set her up in her new life. Which he did by basing it all on the plot of some cheesy romance novel. So Mystery Sancho heads overseas for a protracted period of cold showers and monster hunting trying to avoid his GOTHIC DESTINY. In the meantime Binto is meant to get married off and go have babies or something. But! Consternation! Uproar. The plot summons Mystery Sancho back to merry Olde England ahead of schedule! And she's living in his house! It's like a sitcom!

Actually, all joking aside, this bit is actually pretty good. It would be quite funny, but of course she walks in on him after he's just gotten out of the bath, and the prose does linger over his glistening mighty thews or whatever. It's these frequent breaks for moments of GOTHIC DESTINY and cheese that really help to break up the plot just when it threatens to become interesting. There's the space vampire minions introduced here, though we only really find out that one has an eyepatch and is a guy, and the other is the bitchy other woman type who probably shagged sancho that one time but he's trying to forget about it. And she eats books. As the other woman she is of course SLIGHTLY DODGY.

Moving on, Binto fucks off to a party thrown by her handsome doctor mate who she totally doesn't fancy because she is BEQUETHED BY DESTINY to another, even she doesn't realise it yet. Though considering the beating the poor girls taking from the plot hammer right now you'd think she'd feel at least something. Anyway, he naturally obviously fancies her but will get nowhere because he's probably to nice or some such bullshit. And of course Mystery Sancho crashes the party, for he is compelled by his... GOTHIC DESTINY.

Then there's a bit of dancing, a bit of gossip started, a bit of overwrought heaving bosom type interlude and SHOCK! There's another space vampire or whatever guy. Who is of course slightly dodgy and no doubt involved in whatever the plot is. Currently I'm torn between him being killed for being a bastard or being helpful at some unexpected point. Probably both You know the type.

Then since everybodies up past their bedtime they all fuck off back home whilst Mystery Snacho goes out to hunt Jack The Ripper. At least thats what the blurb on the back cover says. But then it's Victorian London and various females are getting slit up a treat. Who ELSE is it going to be?

And there you have it. That is the story so far. Whats going to happen next? Who knows?

I mean, obviously Sancho and Binto will go through an iterminable period of overwrought heaving bosom bullshit before finally fucking, but thats hardly a revelation is it/ You may as well call the book "These Two Will Fuck Before The End". Be better than the actual title.

Now, to be fair, the idea of some sort of Vampire Victorian B.R.P.D. is actually pretty cool. Not that we really know if Sancho is a Vampire, but I doubt you'll get good odds on that particular bet. Indeed, there night even be a decent story in here, but I wish someone would unplug the sexual tension generator, because it's obviously not a very expensive one.

Next time... "I am a GIANT VULTURE!!"

Well, probably not, but a man can dream can't he?

Wednesday 24 February 2010

It's Coming Down: Part 2 - We Haven't Even OPENED The Damn Book Yet.

Last Time I left off my ranting and no doubt incoherent introduction without actually telling you the name of the damn book. This was entirely deliberate and a cheap attempt to build tension. I'm sure you've been on the edge of your seats with anticipation. Well I can't get out of actually having to to write down the words any longer so here we go:

NIGHT FALLS DARKLY.

I mean COME ON!! Seriously. Night falls DARKLY?!?! What as opposed to all those really bright nights we have?

It's like the sort of title you'd come up with if you were taking the piss out of goths and needed something ridiculous, cheesy and downright retarded to prove your point. It's like a line from whingy teenagers wangsty poetry about how NOBODY UNDERTANDS THEM. Only the DARKNESS and the NIGHT in eternal caliginous twlight dimness of drab dusky graveyard midnight raven etc etc etc.

I realize after all the build up you may not be all that impressed with the subject of my hilarity, but I'm having a hard time keeping a straight face whilst writing this. Seriously, every time I look around it's there, staring back at me like some sort of demented infernal clown wrought from words and madness. THIS is why people tell you to stop whining and go get some sun.

But of course the title alone does not give away the wonder of the cover. You remember how I said that seeing this book put me on the floor? Pissing the proverbial in my demented hysteria? Well I'd managed to pull myself together enough to start getting up again, when I made the mistake of actually taking it off the shelf. And then I was right back down there. Seriously, someone thought that not only was THAT title a great idea, but THIS cover was just perfect for it?

Seriously, fans of paranormal romance. This is positive proof that the publishers are laughing at you. It's like somebody decided to take every benighted cliche and misconception about the genre and incarnate them into one blasphemous whole.

But don't just take my word for it.....


They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In this case the word is SANCHO.

Friday 19 February 2010

It's Coming Down: Part 1 - An Introduction.

There are many terrible things in life. War, AIDS, other people and a lack of chocolate all spring readily to mind, though currently I'm only afflicted with one of those. There are however terrors that lurk in the darkest recesses of the human psyche. Unspeakable mishapen THINGS that are an affront to the very concept of sanity which no sane man can bear witness to without losing some piece of his very soul.

I'm of course talking about Paranormal Romance novels.

It seems that at some point in the recent past, nobodies sure quite when, publishers simply gave up. They stopped looking for new eciting authors. They no longer nurtured talent or promoted, if not originality, then at least basic literary skill, and decided to simply churn out any mindless turgid fanwank pap that whatever talentless hack from the depths of the internet ejaculated into their attention zone. And thus now we have large sections in bookshops where once there were shelves labelled Horror, now given over to a selection of books that must, by some obscure law or other, all feature the word Dark somewhere in their titles. Indeed, bonus points may awarded for those that manage to cram in as many synonyms for the concept as possible. Needless to say they all would appear to be written by people who's parents had a decidedly bizarre and sadistic taste in names, or those that think that whatever you call yourself in Second Life counts.
The additional fact that these books are, essentially, all themed around either beastiality, necrophilia or some nightmarish combination of the two seems to have passed most people by.

Anway, a while ago now I was out and about uptown with a lady friend one time when we happened to call into Forbidden Planet for a bit of a browse. And it was there that the insidious encrouchment of this trend first confronted me. I'd seen they had a small section of these books, and they had elicited giggles from me before. I mean seriously. DOG SEX.
But this time things had changed. Where once was but a tiny corner dedicated to darkest penumbral dog sex of blackest midnight now stretched forth a mighty swathe of such material. Being in a somewhat festive mood I decided to take a browse of such diversity as was on offer. Anything for a giggle.
I was however unprepared for the full onslaught of what I witnessed. For there was a book title of such intense gothic comedy value that it literally knocked me to the very floor.

Seriously. I was actually on the floor, in the middle of Forbidden Planet, laughing my absolute tits off. It was hilarious. I can't even think of it now without giggling. Which is somewhat unfortunate, for both me and you. You see, when I decided to move up to a grown up blog I had a bit of a think about things I could write about. And you'll never guess what I thought would be great idea.

Oh yes. THE BOOK. I'm going read it, and then I'm going to write about it. But not just a simple review. Oh no, that would be to simple. I'm going to go through the whole thing, poece by agonising piece. And I'm going to take you with me. I have no idea how long it will take. It all depends on how far I feel I can stretch it out, how inspired I am but the mighty prose on offer. I doubt I'll be doing a chapter by chapter breakdown, but who knows? This is a new experience for me.

Wednesday 17 February 2010

Why Yes, It Does Have Boobs In It. Why Do You Ask?

The time has come my friends to once more pour forth my ill informed opinions upon the pages of the internet. In this weeks thrilling installment I shall be taking as my subject The Ancient Dogu Girl (Kodai Shōjo Doguchan).

Why? Because it's fucking ace, thats why. And I'm not talking about some sort of Showa Ultraman/Dogu-Chan slash fiction here.

Anyway, by now you should already no at least something of the show. Like the fact that it exists for example. If you don't then what on earth have you been doing with your life? Seriously, at least go look up the trailer on youtube or something. We'll wait for you.

Right, is he gone? Good. That's got rid of him.

So yeah, it looks like a funny sort of show. Light hearted comedy tokusatsu with a girl who tends to not wear much and jump about in a jiggly fashion. And to an extent, yes it is. But It's also a lot more than that. This is a high quality production all around, though not necessarily a high budget one. It's very funny, yes, at least at first. But it also has some very dark and serious episodes. Indeed, the ending to the series is (without giving too much away) rather downbeat. And these serious touches are quite powerful simply because they're simply not what I was expecting. The only problem here was that it was as these more serious elements appeared that the subtitles on my copy began to take a turn for the worse, a subject that I have already discussed previously. Bizzarely enough there are several episodes with more than a shade of GARO influence. Which may sound kind of bizarre, and may even just be me. But when you think about Dogu-Chan IS kind of a comedy fanservice version of Garo, so who knows.

Anyway, we have a really solid series here. It's well written, imaginative and original. And, I can't state this clearly enough, really well acted. For a show that's very much concerned with the physical charms of it's leading lady you may not expect acting to be that high up on thelist of requirements. Indeed I've seen other shows (not mentioning that first Onechanbara film at all here) where the actress has clearly been hired for looks over any other concerns. But Dogu-Chan has real character and personality. She even does good in the fight scenes, another plus. The other leads are also well played, and I wouldn't say there's a duff note in the whole production. What we have is people trying their hardest to make the best show they can within the constraints of the budget.

Now, I'm obviously not the only one to notice how good this series is, since they're making a film version using some existing episodes and some new footage, which is great as more Dogu-Chan can only be a good thing, and it gets the word out beyond those few who got to see it on it's original run. As ever, the real question is if the show will ever get a proper release outside of Japan. I think it has a fair chance. I mean, they released Akiballion even if they haven't released Garo or the thousand other actually good drama and Tokusatsu shows. So I guess the sexy element and Machine Girl connection should help a bit.

In the fianl analysis, this is a show I'd recomend without much hesitation to anyone. It has pretty much all the hallmarks of a good series. Including huge wobbly knockers.

A Perfect Microcosm Of Masculine Logic

I'd like to take a moment to recount yet another dream I have experienced. Because if I have to suffer through this bullshit then I don't see why you should get away scott free.

Anyway, the narrative this time concerned a man (I have no idea who) taking out what I belive was an add on craigslist. You see, he was looking for someone identical to himself to impersonate himself. At his own wedding. Whilst this doppleganger was filling in for him, he would go to Las Vegas with the express intent of gambling his way to a fortune and fucking hookers. When later his wife may find out about this and seek a divorce she would not be intitled to anything because, you see, THEY HAD NEVER REALLY BEEN MARRIED!!!

I should also note that there was a distinct sense of not trying to employ just any clone or twin for this cunning ruse. He was seeking to gain the services of SATAN himself. Because aside from his well documented powers of transmogrification, that would make the whole wedding thing double invalid. Or something.

This stunning narrative has been brought to you courtesy of my brain. Which is apparently on far better drugs than me and not inclined to share.

Friday 12 February 2010

Curiosity Killed The Plot

I would like, if I may, to talk about the issue of subtitles, notably as they relate to releases of a somewhat less than official order.

And since this is my goddamn blog, I may. I could spend my time talking about chicken mating habits if I wanted, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

Anyway, moving on.... There is a strange phenomenon I have noted across many of the various quasi legitimate releases I have purchased. You can call them official malaysian releases all you like, but your not fooling anybody. I just finished watching the full series of Ancient Dogu Girl, and the second half of that hasn't even been released in Japan yet.

It's not that the subtitles are bad, which one might expect. It's that for a lot of series the subtitles are almost perfect. At least at first. They lure you in, lulling you into a false sense of security before suddenly switching around and turning crap. It's like there's basically 2 guys doing the subtitle translations. Guy 1 has a good grasp of japanese and english, and consequently translates the script pretty well. And this goes on for a few episodes, but then his shift finishes. And then guy 2 starts work. And whereas guy 1 had a grasp of the languages involved, guy 2 has a link to babelfish, combined with a callous disregard for the names of the characters involved. Seriously, sometimes you may get a chinese version, sometimes you'll get a random name that I guess he just likes the sound off, and on some occaisions even the name of a different character entirely. Not neccesarily from the show you're currently watching.
And guy 2 gets tired easily. Because the translations on his half of the series invariably get worse as time goes on. For example Dogu-Chan becomes Dogu-Sauce, then Doll, before somehow winding up as Small Soil. And I may very well have missed one or two variations. I must confess however to being delighted to seeing Ultraman Cosmos translated to Super Man Goth.

Now, I know what you may be thinking: "Boobs!" It's okay, that happens to me sometimes too. You may also be thinking something along the lines of serving me right for buying obviously bootleg releases. Well, you'd have a point if wasn't for the fact that the official Japanese releases don't tend to have any subtitles at all. And if you're gonna start going on about waiting for an official english language release you can, frankly, fuck right off. I'd rape your mother for a high quality boxset of Ultraman Mebius with proper subtitles, but despite my generous offer nobody seems keen to oblige.

I just felt like commenting on an unusually widespread phenomena, which I find somewhat interesting. You might expect subtitling of whatever quality to be consistent across a release, but this is not often the case. To be fair though, I've yet to come across one that I couldn't work with at all, as you can usually wrest at least the essence if not the detail with a bit of effort.

I guess I'm just saying to the bootleggers: Give that first guy a bit more time to get stuff done. We'll sill be buying your stuff even if it takes a little longer to release. Because it's not like anyone else is putting this stuff out.

Monday 8 February 2010

eGay

You know, I'm REALLY starting to get pissed off with eBay. Which is a shame. It's still a good place to look for stuff, and I buy a lot of things there. Face it, eBay is pretty much the only place you're gonna find half the stuff I'm into.

However if you actually want to sell stuff on there it quickly turns into a complete nightmare. Their whole attitude towards sellers is, simply put, hostile and antagonistic. It is also completely RETARDED.

We will, for the moment, ignore the whole "Sellers don't get to leave anything other than positive feedback thus rendering the entire feedback system meaningless" debacle, and go straight for my primary source of aggravation: Postage.

Now, how would you think postage and packing rates would work? Something along the lines of the seller setting a rate to cover the postage charge, packing materials, time and effort in sending it out? An amount which is then clearly and unamiguously stated on the listing so that the buyer can decide if they find it acceptable?

WRONG.

Not according to the powers that be at eBay. Who, in the interests of brevity shall henceforth be referred to as "the cunts". According to the cunts a gigantic leatherbound tome costs as much to post as a pamphlet, and all postage types cost the same, irrespective of delivery time, parcel size, weight, security, insurance or any other plainly obvious concerns. Now, even worse was the fact that they had previously set this moronic limit at the highly reasonable amount of £0.00. Thats right, in eBay land not only do boxes, envelopes and bubble wrap fall from the sky, but magical elves will pack up your stuff for you and take it to the post office, who will then deliver it for free out of the kindness of their hearts.

Clearly this is ridiculous. More ridiculous however is the justification for this. They go on about protecting buyers from unreasonable postage costs. Now, I don't know about you, but if I was looking at an item and found the postage cost to be excessive I WOULDN'T FUCKING BUY IT!!! It's pretty straightfoward. You look at the price, you look at the postage, you add them together and you see if it's a price you're willing to pay. I realize that there are a lot of frighteningly stupid people out there, but come on! If they were that thick they wouldn't be able to work the computer at all, let alone sign up to a website since that involves the ability to both read and type.

At no point does concern for sellers being able to maintain their overheads enter into the equation. If you sell an item for 99p you know how much you actually make? 67p. Which is fine until you realize you're going to paying more than that in postage. At that point it's actually costing you money to sell your stuff, not even factoring in all the time you've spent. You are actually better off taking your old CD's or whatever out the back and setting them on fire.

The thing here is that we all know the real reason for these daft restrictions on P&P. Ebay takes a percentage off the sale price, not the grand total. So they think they're missing out. Never mind that most of the transactions will be going through paypal, for which they scalp you for the full amount. So yes, people up the postage to cover the fees and make a bit more. So what? Thats up to them. If the buyers don't like the postage they won't buy. THAT'S HOW CAPITALISM WORKS. If you don't understand basic concepts like market forces then how the fuck is it that you're running a buisness? Either own up and adjust your fees or let the sellers on your site actually sell in a way that's economically sustainable for them.

Now, I should mention that they have almost learnt their lesson. After an interminable period of having to circumvent the unreasonable restrictions in various arcane fashions they've finally deigned to cut the free postage or nothing bullshit and have introduced... maximum postage rates again. They're still not enough to actually cover the costs of any postage scheme above throwing it in the river and hoping it gets there, and their still not fooling anyone as to their motivations, but it's a kind of improvement, right? Though quite why they don't get why I may not want to send stuff out by the shittest, slowest most unreliable methods after stripping me of all rights and recourse as a seller I simply don't know.

Or at least it would be if they'd actually bothered. I sat down tonight to try building some listings with this latest scheme in the vain hope I may actually be able to get somewhere with it, only to find out that they haven't actually put it up yet. Despite it being active as of today, you still can't actually list a DVD with a postage cost. So rather than spending a productive evening getting some stuff done I've gotten really pissed off and posted an overlong semicoherent rant instead.

As I said, cunts.

Screw you guys, I'm gonna go play Metroid.

Friday 5 February 2010

All Of A Sudden Life Is Worth Living Again

 
Check this out! Ultra Galaxy Legend DVD is coming out in April and it has ENGLISH SUBTITLES!!!!
I dunno about you, but I just preordered the limited edition memorial box version.
I've been looking forward to this film since I first heard about it, and everything I've seen makes it look like the BEST FILM EVER MADE EVER. Now to find out I'll be able to get it on DVD at release, without all the waiting around for suspicious copies to finally appear on ebay is excellent news of the highest order.

You hear me Tsubaraya Productions? You can have ALL my money, just put English Subtitles on your DVD's.

Tuesday 2 February 2010

Maid Contain Traces Of Nuts.

If there's one thing promised by anything with the title Akiballion: Battlemaids of Akihabara it's the best thing ever. I mean, seriously. not just Battlemaids, but BATTLEMAIDS OF AKIHABARA. This is a series that has no business sucking.

So, I guess the question you're asking is, simply, does it?

The answer is, sadly, not exactly. But nor is it the masterpiece of fetishistic fanboy pleasing one might hope for. What we have is a low to no budget production, as evidenced by the (apparently) single camera setup and noticebly lacking in overdub sound. Not that this is a bad thing in any way. Indeed, I personally prefer something with a low budget, as it's only really then that you see genuine effort and creativity. But it's worth noting that this is not exactly an A list production. Really I think the major problem here is simply in the pacing and editing. Frankly each episode could probably lose 5 to 10 minutes and would benifit from tightening up a little. There is a tendenacy to hold shots just a little longer than really necessary. Also the monster torturing the heroine scenes could REALLY stand to be cut down some. Seriously, they do go beyond the fetishistic and into just plain wierd and creepy territory. Not that we're talking graphic here or anything, but 10 minutes of the monster treading on one of the girls whilst they pretend to writhe in agony to varying degrees of believability does tend to stretch things a little to far.

Performance wise it's not terrible, but nor is it necessarily anything special. Kudos does have to go out for the fight scene choreography though. In that there actually is some. I've seen some stuff where the heroines have been hired more for their looks than their fighting ability, and it does show. Here the girls manage to not look entirely uncomfortable in action, and it's also worth noting that although masked when they transform it's always the actress doing the action. When you take into account just how short the uniforms skirts are this is probably for the best, as a stuntman would be the stuff of nightmares.

This leads us fairly naturally onto the visual production, so let's talk about that. The Akiballion uniforms look good. The skirts are of course basically only there to allow for upskirt shots when the heroines move about, and they achieve this effect quite wonderfully. If you weren't expecting something of this nature then what the hell were you doing watching Battlemaids of Akihabara? I mean, what did you think was going to happen? Fanservicey, but ridiculously or excessively. Well, not too much anyway.
The monsters are not bad, but again the budget does kick in a little. Perhaps they're just not outlandish enough for my own personal tastes, though the third one is pretty original now that I think of it.

Plot wise, well... Yes there is one, no it's not quite enough to fill out the running time. There are as previously mentioned areas that needed trimming down, but also there are areas that could have been more fully explored. Thematically it's quite interesting, and I love the way all the monsters seem to start out as creepy otaku before recieving thier power up courtesy of some Akihabara themed goods. Laptop, camera, microscope? I suppose we should be grateful they stopped before getting to the Doujins, or we'd have a very different style of production on our hands. we do also get a treated to a lot of shots of in and around Aki itself (notably during the overlong front titles) which is nice, though it does mean that the first episode takes quite a while to get going. It is kind of worth it for the Moe singing maid, who bizarrely is then never featured again. This is, I have to say, quite dissapointing. Especially when you consider that 2 of 3 members of Akiballion aren't even maids themselves. One maid, one nurse and one idol. So going for a broad a range of fetishes as possible really.

All in all I'd have to say that the idea's are sound, the concept is interesting and there's obviously some hard work gone in, but the production does seem to have come against the dreaded time and budget constraints. A good try, but quite 100% successful. I'd certainly be intrigued to see what they could do with a decent amount of money and time, along with a good editor.