Anime: Otaku no Video

Heed the wisdom of the ancients...

For the first time in forever, I have actually been inspired (for want of a better term) by animu that is older than I am. And I could easily see myself going entirely retro were it not for my firm grounding it what we have now as better than what went then, which has been both buffeted and reinforced by this relic.

I can say wholeheartedly, that this is the most appealing pre-computer-ised animation style i've ever been exposed to. There was actual love poured into some of these frames, to the degree of intricacy which puts more modern digitally rendered offerings to shame. Character design I would say is on the apex of the style (according to my limited knowledge) and was a pleasure to look at throughout. Backgrounds could get very well rendered too, with little to no glaring oversights that i can consider at this point.

Sound, which is the priority for me in animu experiences falls flat. music is tedious, uninspired, starkly generic and downright plain. sound effects (those that are there) are taken right out the stock book.Same thing for character voices to be honest. But fortunately, there is no extended grating screeching or otherwise element to make listening to it a chore/pain or otherwise.

The story is awesome. In the literal sense of provoking admiration for those who have gone before, and did not have Our Most Holy Internets' Apostolic Ministry Through The Saints to rely on. It brings to life (through strawman-ing to be sure) the culture that we will fortunately never have to deal with, and can therefore reinvent in much more horrible ways.

thats the non animated bits.

The animated bits are a bit tedious to be sure. The basic 5 occurrence development happens, and then ( in greatly truncated style) happens all over again proving that the good guys always win.
Aye.
Moving right along...

Characters were good, as in genuinely interesting to watch occur on screen and progress through the story. the protagonistas get a good grounding, less than thorough (mercifuly?) exposition and fairly solid development. Sadly thats about it, there was a fair bit more that could have conceivably be done with the premise(and for that matter probably has in the modern era), but I doubt it would have sold at the time.

As a side note, this was possibly the first animu to provoke a genuine reaction of hatred to a character in me, which was a bit surprising, sleep deprivation notwithstanding.

Now, it is a relic to be appreciated, but once you've appreciated it thats about it, move on, unless you can conceivably enjoy it in company.

But this was genuinely enjoyable to watch, a more grown up story with flairs of over the top-ness to make it true animu, and I would heartily recommend you invest a couple hours in it.

Portrait of an Otaku.

A friend recommended this to me, telling me it's an excellent depiction of what a person can be transformed into by anime. I downloaded it, left it to sit and rot in my hard drive for a while, particularly till I convinced myself that I was an otaku as well. Then my friend came over and we watched it...

Kubo. Yea, he's your average guy, with average friends, and an average girlfriend - Yoshiko Ueno. Well he doesn't really seem to care about tennis anymore, and meeting some old classmates in an elevator, he meets a type of creatures he never could imagine existed.

Probably the first thing that caught me about this story is the number of old animes are promoted in Otaku no Video. Urusei Yatsura, Doraemon, and many other older titles get some screen time in this OVA. Then what humored me were the illustrious Portrait of an Otaku scenes of real-life otakus conversing with GAINAX interviewers. Like gambit, I wasn't converted like they were, so I didn't find too much to relate with them on, but the interviews were hilarious.

The real story isn't all that much.

Basically Kubo goes from a newbie to an otaku. He then discovers, by some situational irony, that he will become "Otaking," the king of otakus. The story wraps around this basic plot, and that's about it - just previews of various animes.

I think I liked the interviews the most. The voice acting was good, and the character development altogether was decent. The animation did get a little crazy, but because of the aged look, it really killed my appeal to the designs altogether. I don't really remember any of the music, and I have no willpower to even go check to see what it was. This is probably due to the fact that I got bored out of my mind, since this anime relates to a lot of animes I haven't seen.

My recommendation is only to those who have seen a lot of old, classic anime titles. Anyone else might be able to get a few laughs, but I was one of those that didn't have any ground to stand on in the first place. Good parody, not for me. :-P

Started as a semi-documentary made by Gainax, it cleared the way for them as one of the biggest names in the anime-business.

Although I have to admit that it's a very original effort to combine anime and reality into one, I can't see how they became big with it. It doesn't stand out anywhere and although it's nice to watch, it's not too great.

It tells the story of a young man who accidentally encounters the world of otaku. After meeting some weird otaku, he becomes interested in their devotion to their hobby. He decides to hang out with them, and you'll definitely recognise the several standard otaku-characters.
The story tells all about the ways of the devoted otaku from the point of view of the otaku himself - while every now and then getting interrupted by an irl interview with an (ex)otaku.

The story is really like a funny documentary, but not really being that fun. Perhaps it's because I never became an otaku the way they show, or perhaps I'm just not understanding it, but for me it wasn't that great.

What they did great was overdoing it, creating the idea of an otaku-world and such. Parody all over, but still good :)