anime top 6

some time ago my brother asked me about my top 5 anime. that's quite a difficult question to answer. it gets easier if one breaks it down by genre. so, here is my anime top 6 by genre.(because 5 is just plain boring)

i didn't rate the titles in a certain category as best or worst, i've just arranged them in random order (meaning I didn’t arrange them at all); it was difficult enough to decide which anime to keep and which to drop, let alone think about ranking them.

i have only considered anime i have seen from start to finish (that's why higurashi and mnemosyne didn't make the list). many of these titles fit in more than one category, however i have included them in the category i've felt mostly represented it. i have deliberately left out the hentai category because i don't want to turn my blog into a /d/ thread. so there you have it:

action:

- ninja scroll

- ghost in the shell (1995)

- cowboy beebop

- planetes

- black lagoon

- mononoke hime
[princess mononoke]



drama/thriller/psychological:

- shin seiki evangelion
[neon genesis evangelion]

- perfect blue

- serial experiments lain

- haibane renmei

- kostsu hyaku monogatari
[hundred stories]

- ima, sokoni iru boku
[now and then, here and there]



light/slice of life/social:

- toki wo kakeru shoujo
[the girl who leapt through time]

- genshiken

- nhk ni youkoso!
[welcome to the nhk]

- spice and wolf

- juuni kokki
[the twelve kingdoms]

- kumo no mukou, yakusoku no basho
[the place promised in our early days]



comedy:

- flcl

- azumanga daioh

- manabi straight!

- golden boy

- ippatsu kiki musume
[miss critical moment]

- suzumiya haruhi no yuutsu
[the melancholy of haruhi suzumiya]



short:

- blood: the last vampire

- kanojo to kanojo no neko
[she and her cat]

- memories (part 3: cannon fodder)

- animatrix (part: beyond)

- umi ga kikoeru
[ocean waves]

- hoshi no koe
[voices of a distant star]

Towel Day

the 25^th of may was is the international towel day, it commemorates the late douglas adams, the author of the hitchhiker´s guide to the galaxy. on this day, his fans all over the world carry around a towel wherever they go. why a towel, you ask, well, a towel is probably the most important item a galactic hitchhiker can carry:

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

in the above images i'm brandishing my blue towel next to the solfar, the sun voyager - a steel sculpture by jon gunnar arnason, resembling a viking ship, close to reykjavik's city center.

the shape of things to come...

WARNING: this post contains the word “yaoi”. proceed at your own risk. the poster doesn’t bear any liability if harm is inflicted, physical or mental.

just like with every other entertainment industry, anime releases rocket every fall and winter as publishers try to squeeze out as many products as possible during the x-mas season. i will not refer to all of these realeases to come (you can just google it if you’re interested), but try to take a closer look to some sequels to amine that have already impressed me.

genshiken, the second season is already airing and fans all over the world wonder: is it any good? does it live up to the original? well, it’s different. while the first season mainly focused on making fun of otaku culture, this last season is more about the characters. it does seem to follow the manga and, judging by the opening, it will focus on the adventures of our yaoi-loving ogiue-chan (speaking of the opening, it’s not as well crafted as the one for the 1^st series the oav, it’s just one of those openings that you can skip right over instead of watching it at the start of every episode). still, the anime looks promising and it’s probably worth watching (and vol. 9 of the manga should also come out in november).

haruhi fans are waiting for the 2^nd season that was promised? well, it probably won’t make it till x-mass, maybe in the 1^st quarter of 2008. i’m quite anxious to see what the sos brigade is up to next. oh, and what’s with the talking cat?

there are also 2 oavs, one episode each coming out. (they are already here in fact). one of them is ep 13 of manabi straight (massugu go!) and the other is an oav for that heartwarming slice of life anime: aria. but wait, there’s more! a third season of aria was announced…mmm…now i’m getting a warm, fuzzy feeling inside (embarrassing remarks aren’t allowed!)

well, there is much much more, appleseed: ex machina, a new kite oav entitled kite: liberator (this will probably be 18+), you’re under arrest!:full throttle, a new season of kiddy grade (my bro will love this), moonlight mile 2^nd season, a possible ninja scroll 2 (later in 2008)…

well, that’s just the tip of the iceberg, sequels to some great anime, but there are a lot of new shows out there too. oh, and i didn’t mention the new eva movies because they will surely fuck them up. they are doing the same exact shit as lucas did. you are not artists anymore, you are greedy pigs…and we all know that a pig that doesn’t fly is just a pig.

and this story shall also be told

i’ve attended a school on polymer micro-/nanofabrication in estonia some time ago. it was fun and very educational. however in this post i’ll write only about one of the social activities, namely the visit to rakvere castle.

it was a lot of fun, despite the the fact that it rained all the time. there were several hands-on activities (with a lot of fake swords) and a cheap torture chamber mock-up. i suppose i shouldn’t be complaining, it the swords weren’t fake we wouldn’t have been able to play with them; like i said, lots of fun.

the highlight of the evening was dinner in the castle’s main hall. we had some old-looking clay tableware, coarse bread, meat and wine. even though i missed some music, maybe some minstrels and troubadours, it was awesome beyond measure (i’m sure this is every larper’s wet dream). well, the pictures speak for themselves.

also, let’s see how much of a geek you guys are. 10 points to the first one to name the 1982 cult movie from which i’ve taken the title of this post (the second picture is a hint).

no post

i am busy and tired, so you only get a "no post", my bro's invention. an image and a quote, totally unrelated (or maybe not).

"if that thing hits, do you think we'll have school tomorrow? " - mamimi

welcome to the nhk

you’re a college drop-out and your life has been going downhill lately, you have no friends and you spend your days secluded in your room sleeping 16 hours daily, watching cheap tv shows relying on your parents for support. surely the blame isn’t yours, it must be a huge, well- orchestrated conspiracy!

welcome to our weekly (almost) anime review, today’s candidate: nhk ni yokoso (welcome to the nhk). the show follows the adventures of tatsuhiro sato, an unemployed college drop-out who lives like a hermit firmly convinced that a conspiracy is out to get him, while a mysterious girl and his otaku neighbor try to help him become a well adjusted member of the society (the most obvious way is of course to get him involved in a project to create a hentai game :p ). the show most closely resembles genshiken and also presents a glimpse into certain aspects of otaku culture (anime, h-games, maid cafés, mmorpgs, natsucomi and fuyucomi), but also, unlike genshiken, some of the more pressing problems of modern japan are also presented (unemployment, hikikomori lifestyle, suicide).

like genshiken, this show is a must see for any self-respecting otaku (endi, szilard take note) and also like genshiken you need to be at least slightly familiar with otaku culture to get all the in-jokes. btw, sato’s sempai from the literary club is voiced by sanae kobayashi, who is also the seiyu for kitagawa (genshiken) and madlax (madlax), nyu/lucy (elfen lied), daedalus (ergo proxy).

both the animation and the soundtrack are great and complement each other very well. the pacing is well done and the plot offers more than a few surprises. while there are several dramatic moments, the series is very humorous and i was rotfl the entire time. there are many instances which could be considered product placement had the brand names not been changed – sato smokes warlboro and uses mindows xx home edition :p

ps: szilard, put down the ps2 controller and go watch some anime.

erice - nanophotonics school

i’ve only recently returned from erice, italy, from a summer school on nanophotonics. as kintaro would say “it was so educational”. it was also rather exhausting, but a lot of fun nonetheless. i’ve met some interesting people, both participants and lecturers.

erice is a small town in sicily at an altitude of 750m, overlooking the sea. the town is simply great; lots of narrow cobblestone streets angled at funny angles…a perfect setting for medieval larping (live action role-playing). there’s also a ruined castel at the outskirts of the town which started out as a temple to aphrodite and was later rebuilt as a late medieval castle. very nice place to hang out by night, after the poster session, with some good company and the obligatory cups of marsala wine.

well, in a nutshell, i had a great time. next stop: palmse, estonia, polymer micro-/nanofabrication summer school in september.

nyarlathotep

those of you familiar with the writings of h. p. lovecraft have probably heard of nyarlathotep before. he is an outer god, a messenger to azathoth and is also named the crawling chaos. (if you don´t know who lovecraft is, just wiki him, i don´t have the time or space to properly introduce him here)

as you can see form the above pictures, i´ve managed to summon a small plush nyarlathotep from beyond the stars and bind him to my will. he now guards my home while i´m away and whispers the dark secrets of the universe to my during the night. i have to be careful however as he is always plotting to free himself - you can see him trying to take over the internet using my laptop (but osaka is not afraid)

zettai shonen

it´s time for another anime review. zettai shonen falls in the supernatural mystery, slice of life category; it was directed by tomomi mochizuki (ranma ½, twin spica) and the character design was done by masayuki sekine (mind game, yokohama shopping log) . the story follows the adventures of a boy, ayumu aizawa who travels to the countryside to spend his summer with his father. the plot can be divided into two parts, one that takes place before the cat dance festival, where the main element is the supernatural and the mysterious occurrences, and the second part, after the cat dance festival, where the story focuses on the characters and the relationships between them – let´s call them summer arc and winter arc.

while during the summer arc the emphasis is on the supernatural element and on building up anticipation (you just know from the start that something will happen during the cat dance festival), the winter arc is more about the characters and their happiness or sorrow (this doesn´t turn the show into a generic high school romance though, due to the well developed, and somewhat eccentric characters and the constant presence and involvement of the “material fairies”). another interesting aspect underlined several times in the winter arc is how the advent of modern communication (internet, cell phone) affects our relationships with others (perhaps this is even more acute in japan than in europe).

overall zettai shonen is a pleasant anime to watch in those moments when you're just looking for some relaxation without having to strain your brain cells and you aren´t in the mood for action movies (hellsing, black lagoon). the characters are lovable in their own way (i liked the way kisa kept sending e-mails to her future self) and the ending is also quite satisfying.

towel day

the 25^th of may was is the international towel day, it commemorates the late douglas adams, the author of the hitchhiker´s guide to the galaxy. on this day, his fans all over the world carry around a towel wherever they go. why a towel, you ask, well, a towel is probably the most important item a galactic hitchhiker can carry:

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

i was also proudly carrying my towel around, hoping that people would ask me about it so i could tell them how awesome douglas adams is. but apart from a few inquiring glances on the bus, nobody asked me anything; this might have to do with the fact that i work in an underground lair (read optics lab) and don´t meet too many people. nonetheless it was great fun.

on robi´s blog (link is on the right side) you can see some friends of mine wearing their towels in a bar in cluj, now there are some froods who really know where their towels are.

the 25^th of may is also the nerd pride day and the universal day of the jedi (bleh-desu...)

immelmann loop

named after a german ww1 ace, max immelmann, the maneuver is in fact a half loop and a half twist, after which you end up the opposite direction from which you came (unlike in a regular loop). while this stunt isn´t very useful in a dogfight, it is a lot of fun on a rollercoaster.

i´ve had the luck to try out a rather fancy rollercoaster in copenhagen, in tivoli gardens (btw, tivoli means amusement park in icelandic). first of all, i had to discover that huge scary steel rolercoasters are much more pleasant than the puny wooden ones. they offer a much smoother ride, while the wooden ones bump you against the sides of the car as you aren´t strapped in properly.

my only regret is that i didn´t have an mp3 player with me so i could listen to manowar while riding ( power would have been quite an appropriate song); lacking the proper music all i could do was yell from the top of my lungs SATAaaa ANDAGIiii when i got to the top of the loop (i wonder how many of you get this joke!?).

ps: the pic was taken right after coming out of a zero g roll; you can see how calm i take it all (mostly cause it was my 3^rd time on that ride :p).

for great justice...

there you go claudiu.

these are gold wires, on a sub-micron scale fabricated by reducing chlorauric acid (HAuCl4) triggered by a two-photon absorption process (this was detailed in another post so i won't go into details).

the area of interest in this image is the top right corner where you can see the inscription "ayb", mirrored, though, as the sample is upside down relative to the objective. (the image was taken with a 100x oil immersion objective)

and no, claudiu. i don't have any "s" or "ncc-1701" inscriptions :p

the cleanroom

for lack of a better topic, i´ll just post a picture from the cleanroom. i´m the fat guy in the middle, right next to the ellipsometer. the cleanroom itself is somewhere between a class 100 and 1000 (this means the number of particles of 0.5 micron diameter per cubic feet).

there is a lot going on in there , but i myself, right now, am doing some thin gold strips on a specific polimer -benzocyclobuthene- by means of uv photolithography (they will serve as plasmonic waveguides).

birthday, birthday...

first of all i wish to thank all of you who have wished me happy birthday. it’s the second time that i spend my birthday away from all family and friends -it looks like i’ll make a habit out of this- so getting some simple greetings form friends and acquaintances means a lot to me.

since i throwing a party was out of the question i still thought that doing some fancy cooking might uplift my spirits a bit (good food does have that effect on me, what can i say? i’m that cheap; just give me a turorudi and you have won my heart forever). after long hours of pondering i have managed to narrow it down to two candidates: chocolate cake or sushi. you can see from the pics which of them won in the end. It was yummy…though eating alone is rather sad.

and i haven’t forgotten about the pictures from the cleanroom, pete. maybe next time.

the power of procrstination

procrastination (latin: pro- (forward) and crastinus (of tomorrow)) is somewhat related to the ancient romanian custom of “mint rubbing”. it basically involves (but is not limited to) all those small activities one does at work or school in order to improve his productivity – like drawing random caricatures, reading webcomics or counting the cracks in the ceiling. in modern times, due to the advent of the internet, procrastination is easier than ever, still, if you’re somewhat confused and don’t know how to start, you might wont to check out some of these sites (the first one is really kawaii and involves permutations):

- grow (http://www.eyezmaze.com/grow/cube/index.html),
- big red button
(http://www.transbuddha.com/mediaHolder.php?id=747),
- progress quest (http://www.progressquest.com/),
- 1d tetris (http://www.tetris1d.org/),

enjoy and have a productive procrastination

chocolate fondue....mmm

tonight we -me and some neighbors of mine- had chocolate fondue, complete with bananas, pears and oranges. it was great fun. by the time it ended we had fondue all over the place (the table, us, our clothes), which is quite a frequent occurrence in my case, though it felt got not to be the only one :)

+2 flamming mousepad of the moon

well, this is my new mouse pad. cute, isn’t it? it reads “space protectors” instead of invaders, cause we don’t want to infringe any copyright law, now do we? (this grammatical structure is called a ‘tag question’ *gains +10 in english grammar skill*). anyway, i’m looking forward to using it.

shin seiki evangelion

it’s quite difficult for me to review this one as it’s my favorite anime of all times. a masterpiece. truly unique. if you pick this up i promise you, you’ll either love it or hate it. (it’s important that you watch the entire series and don’t stop halfway through at episode 14)

an acquaintance of mine from france once told me when i inquired about him seeing eva that he is not into mecha anime. EVANGELION IS NOT ABOUT MECHA!! keep this in mind. if you want an action mecha anime pick up gundam, macros or anything else, there are a million plus one titles out there. for those unfamiliar with the term, mecha stands for anything from powered armor to giant robots/mechs (basically any mechanical thingy that has 2 or more legs and is piloted by humans).

the anime is rather old (it’s 10 years anniversary will be sometime in spring if i’m not mistaken) so the animation might seen somewhat outdated by today’s standards. but it really doesn’t matter. it’s not the animation or the action scenes that make eva great, it’s what lies underneath. and i can assure you, there are plenty of layers below the surface. i could write about the philosophy or the religious symbolism or the psychology of the show, but i won’t. just get the anime, find some time to watch it and if you liked it you’ll find plenty of forums and sites with detailed info and interpretations. just don’t expect to understand everything after the first viewing, you won’t.

after watching the 26 episodes of the series there’s also a full length feature called “the end of evangelion” which is an alternate ending, but it’s as much an integral part of the show as the 26 episodes (so don’t go to sleep before you watch that too). again, i can’t emphasize enough (maybe some caps will help) THIS ANIME IS A MUST SEE !! it doesn’t matter what genre you like, if you are into anime, you must try this one out.

also, as a not entirely off-topic side note, if you are interested in a crash course on kabbala you might want to read “inner space” by rabbi aryeh kaplan (amongst other things it explains in a comprehensive manner the basics about the ten sefirot and their standing in the context of jewish mysticism). just keep in mind that by reading what some contemporary rabbis wrote about some medieval rabbis who wrote about the kabbala, you won’t become an expert on the subject, unless you’re madonna of course.

and to finish with a well suited quote:

"god's in his heaven, all's right in the world!" - robert browning

shiroi kisetsu [white season]

it was the 18th of november. saturday. it snowed…a lot. when i woke up on sunday morning the snow was around 30-35cm. it was simply great. usually snow doesn’t last too long around here, since it’s not cold enough (can you believe that?!) and a colleague of mine made a bet that it wouldn’t last for more then 4-5 days. she lost the bet, as today is the 30th and we still have some snow left (though very little).

i wonder if we can expect some snow for the winter holidays (hanukkah :p, that is)

asoiaf - grrm

i’ve been neglecting my blog somewhat lately, but that’s mainly because i’ve been reading the 4th book in the “a song of ice and fire” saga by george martin. well, i can only recommend it to everybody, it’s fantasy literature at it’s best. forget about those shitty dragonlance and forgotten realms books (i’m ashamed i’ve ever read those). this is true literature, not some stupid wizards of the cost novel (they release three or so every month, but they are not worth the paper they’re printed on).

also, you can forget about tokien’s high fantasy and the war between the absolute good and the absolute evil (the former always winning, i still think sauron should have won, a few centuries of darkness might have been welcome) in a song of fire and ice all the characters are grey, and have their own goals and ambitions.

the plot is thick and runs on multiple threads. george martin uses the multiple point of view characters narration, which means that you experience the story through the eyes of different characters (thus you know more than any single character, but you’re not truly omniscient). far from being just a rewritten history, the novels were somewhat influenced by the war of the roses, and two of the main families, the starks and the lannisters represent, to a certain extent, the house of york and house lancaster, respectively. the story is truly epic in scale spanning several continents and featuring more than one hundred characters (from podrick the squire to ser gregor clegane, the mountain that rides); also all the names are perfectly pronounceable and make sense (no “yafein val'sullisin'rune” here).

the plot, like i’ve said, is truly complex, no trace of the typical “farm boy becomes magician and undertakes journey to defeat dragon and marry princess” cliché here. we are faced with political power struggles, a clash of religions and many subtle or violent twists. the only drawback: seven books are to be released, but only 4 are out so far, the fifth being released sometime in spring 2007 (and i can’t wait any longer!)

so whether you’re into fantasy or not, grab the first book (ask viki to lend it to you) and start reading. decide for yourself if you’re interested in the rest or not. (i think pete and andrei will like it, endi should first finish the black company though).

and to serve as an ending, the oath of the night’s watch:
”night gathers, and now my watch begins. it shall not end until my death. i shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. i shall wear no crowns and win no glory. i shall live and die at my post. i am the sword in the darkness. i am the watcher on the walls. i am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. i pledge my life and honor to the night's watch, for this night and all the nights to come.”