Review: Paranorman

Paranorman wasn't something I thought I'd like.  Stupid crap about Halloween and witches and GOD!  I've been there, done that.

Luckily, I was wrong.

Aesthetically, I feel mixed about this movie.  The art direction was brilliant: claymation-style characters, every one of them unique.  Of course, it's still got that vibe you get off Family Guy and the Simpsons, but that seems pretty much inevitable in American animation.  I hate that vibe.  It makes my skin crawl.  It's like the sound of teeth scraping along a fork: I want to punch the responsible party.  But I think in this movie it was well-done, at least.  Norman's hair, his sister's hips, Josh's shoulders -- exaggeration was used to great effect.

Music was forgettable, but served its job.  Voice acting was spot-on and fully immersive.  There was nothing to criticize, but I don't really know voice actors that well, so I don't have all that much to say.

The story, too, wasn't anything particularly groundbreaking.  Kid talks to the dead, everyone thinks he's a freak and doesn't understand him, kid winds up on quest to prevent local witch's lingering curse from destroying entire town.  You can guess the rest from there -- it's fairly straightforward.  I guess if you're bad at predicting plots, you'll be surprised, since a couple of the people I watched the film with were somehow shocked (I have no clue how) by the "surprise" twists.  

So if the plot isn't the hook, the art not my cup of tea, and the sound whatever, why did I like Paranorman?

This film was put together brilliantly.  It was dark for a kids film, a little raunchy, and very aware of exactly which stereotypes it was fulfilling.  I don't think it was a great thing to take the children out to see, but it's perfect for the high school/college environment.  There were so many little things the filmmakers did, from the grand speech of the lady with the mud mask to the clever little pieces of the mise-en-scene.  They chose to be daring in their presentation of the final confrontation, and still gave the viewers their happily-ever-after.

If you haven't seen Paranorman yet and enjoy it when the adults are wrong (because this is one of THOSE films, another reason parents likely won't buy this DVD), I'd say ferret out a copy and give it a watch.

It's the End of the World As We Know It

And I feel fine.

Oops.

I lied.

Ha ha, I've grow to be so obsessed with Homestuck that everything makes me think about it.  It's as bad as my pony obsession.  I was making a post on my Tumblr account about how empty I feel, here on the cusp of a supposed apocalypse.  And it has nothing to do with the end of the world.  But then I realized I sound like a void player.  Some of my friends said I'd be Mind.  One said Blood.  One said Void.  But the thing is, the decision isn't ultimately mine.

Speaking of Tumblr, I can't rack up the notes to save my life.  I got all of zero notes on my last art piece.  I got one on the prior piece.  Geez, I know I'm not really all that good, but I thought it'd go over a little better than that.

=/

The Things I Notice at 4 AM

So it just finally hit me:

It's not just me.  Dave's raps really do suck.

That last thing?  Totally me thinking about Homestuck and spewing that out there.  Probably has better actual rap aspects than anything Dave ever churned out.  And here I thought the whole thing was just funny, but I finally realized.

Nope.

Sorry, Dave.

Review: Steins;Gate

Steins;Gate is everything an anime for an older audience should and could be.  Adult humor without being explicit, fanservice without nudes or feeling cheap, excellent voice acting, a cast of over-the-top and loveable characters, an intricate story line, gorgeous animation, fitting soundtrack that I absolutely felt compelled to track down -- anime bliss.  This also is the choice of Stein's Gate.

Steins;Gate is the next series in line with Chaos;Head, but other than a couple Easter eggs, the two rarely intersect, despite being the same universe.  Like its predecessor, Steins;Gate started life as a visual novel, which is reflected in the number of potential ships -- everyone but Daru is into our protagonist, it seems, though I don't doubt someone ships Daru, too.

Our protagonist is Okabe Rintarou, who calls himself Hououin Kyouma, the Mad Scientist.  His right-hand man is the super hacker, Daru, a stereotypical overweight otaku with a plethora of waifus; but the title of Lab Member 002 goes to Mayuri Shiina, better known as Mayushii, the obligatory cute childhood friend who embodies innocence.  Okabe runs Future Gadgets Laboratory out of a room rented over a TV repair shop specializing in cathode ray "braun tubes."  Okabe is attending Professor Nakabachi's special lecture on time machines when he discovers a murder -- child prodigy Makise Kurisu has been stabbed.  But a simple text message to a phone hitched to his Gadget 004: Phone Microwave (name subject to change) has caused a jump in timelines that only he can remember.  Makise becomes lab member 004, and a whole number of other characters -- Suzuha, Moeka, Feyris, and Ruka, most significantly -- become wrapped up in a string decisions that need to be undone before time runs out.  Considering that they're building a time machine, you wouldn't expect that to be as much of a problem as it turns out to be.

Go.  Run to it.  It's out on Blu-Ray/DVD combo-pack.  I only wish I could afford it.  I'll wait for a single series bundle, but right now it's two sets and will run you about $90 for the whole thing.

Review: Serial Experiments Lain

Serial Experiments Lain is an anime about the way the growing connective prowess of the internet is actually alienating and distancing people from people.  Sort of.  Maybe.  I'm confused.

Lain is about a girl named Lain who isn't really a girl but is physical but is also a program and can hijack your subconscious to reprogram your memories and actions and therefore the overlapping versions of her programming just kind of create layered time loops and I dunno.

Actually, Lain makes sense, if you take the time to really think it over.  It's also a brilliant series, made in 1998 but more relevant now than it was then, 14 years later.  The internet -- the "Wired" is bringing the world into our bedrooms.  Will we lose touch with the value of physical interaction when networking makes everything so easy?

The series is another short one, only what, thirteen episodes?  Really, go check it out.  I watched it a little over a week ago and still have the theme stuck in my head.

Review: Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Puella Magi Madoka Magica is one of those magical girl series that leave me saying, "What the heck?"

Some magical girl series ("mahou shoujo" series) are just straight up sugar.  Nah, y'know what?  I'm lying.  Some magical girl series are dubbed and edited and cut into straight up sugar.  They're never born that way.  The authors and artists are careful to include enough troubles and trials from real life to ground the girls.  Hell, Sailor Moon isn't just a star-crossed lover, she's stuck in a repeating time-loop of failure.  CardCaptor Sakura doesn't just have to overcome the Clow; she has to deal with her gay brother, her brother's boyfriend, the price of her own inadequacies, and life without a mother.  You don't want to hear me even get started on Utena from Revolutionary Girl Utena ("Shoujo Kakumei Utena")!  Magic Knight Rayearth was written as a tragedy.  Alice Academy ("Gakuen Alice") turned out to be basically enslaving children.  Shall I continue, or have I made my point?

Many of the series I've mentioned here are among the most famous magical girl series.  The fact is that there are many, many magical girl series out there that, like CardCaptor Sakura, overcome all their darkness with sweetness.  Puella Magi Madoka Magica...is not one of them.

Madoka was advertised as a magical girl show.  It has an opening reminiscent of CCS.  And yet, even in those first two episodes, read into the lyrics.  It is showing its fangs, gently, behind its smile.  In the third episode, its strikes, shattering your hope that all will be will for these little girls.  The credits song changes accordingly, alerting you that all pretense has been dropped.  When marathoning the series, it serves as a spine-shivering contrast between how things should be and how they are.  There is the unmistakable feeling of something being terribly, horribly wrong.

I love this series.  It didn't give me a happy ending.  It did amaze me and keep me engaged for all of its twelve episodes.  Each episode served a purpose and advanced the plot.  The pacing was tight, the music appropriate and in some places haunting.  One track in particular stood out, with its heavy emphasis on woodwinds creating a medieval air  They had a strong sense of timing as well: when you saw the girl's transformation sequence, God help her because Kyubey won't.  Everything was well-executed.  The witch's dimensions were fascinating.  The avoidance of true black helps advance the facade of a children's fairy tale, but like most fairy tales it had darkness at its core.

There's a reason there were four separate AMVs of Madoka entered in this year's Otakon AMV contest.  Go check this series out!

Review: Portal

Yeah, yeah, I realize that I'm pretty much the only person that hadn't played this game yet.  Would you believe the first time I heard about it was at a college where the girls still weren't allowed to wear pants and they had his and hers elevators?  But yeah, that was the first time.  The prof of the lecture I was sitting in on was complaining about "Still Alive" being stuck in his head.

In case you, like me, were raised under a rock, Portal is a 2007 puzzle/platformer/FPS game by Valve that spawned the popular internet joke, "The cake is a lie!"  Also extremely popular has been the credits song, "Still Alive."

You are playing as Chell, a female protagonist who is actually *gasp* not overly sexualized.  I know, right?  It's like a freakin' miracle.  But if you've played Half-Life 2, you'll realize that Valve is actually pretty decent about these kinds of things.

Chell is a test subject for Aperture Science, a rival of Half-Life's Black Mesa Corporation.  Chell has to navigate the nineteen test chambers Aperture set up for their portal gun, a device that shoots out, well, portal gates.  Using these gates and the game physics, the player has to figure how to navigate Chell through the levels without getting killed.  Even the few instances of "combat" are puzzle-based.  This all culminates in a showdown with GLaDOS, the rogue supercomputer that serves as your malfunctional guide for much of the game.

Portal is really short.  And by short, I mean I beat it in about five hours.  That's with Portal also being the first game I've ever played using just my mouse and keyboard instead of connecting a console controller.  That meant I spent a lot of time getting a feel for the calibration of my mouse and tweaking it.  I also spent a lot of time gazing around, since for some reason the installation couldn't recognize my graphics card.  I guess it's time to redo my drivers.

But despite its short length, Portal is worth the dime.  It's only $4.99 if you download it using the Steam client, and let's face it, Steam is free.  Plus, there's plenty of replay value in trying to beat all the challenge modes and advanced levels.  And it's good for fifteen achievements.