Observations, musings, and an innocuous anime rant or two.

[merimask]

Busy busy!  First of all, I've been working tonight on the fish-mask idea golden_meliades gave me *pats self on back for not having to look up exact spelling of "meliades"*, which it turns out is a VERY GOOD and fun idea!  I have two designs; one with koi and one with male betta (Siamese fighting fish).  The bettas were easy because I have some of those.  No shortage of models there.  :-)  The koi though...those were something I wanted to research.  As an artist I find that it's one thing to think you know what something looks like, and an entirely different thing to know  what it looks like.  

Anyway I researched the heck out of koi and they're pretty freaking fascinating.  Like everything Japanese, there are about 300 sub-classifications based on color and pattern combinations.  The most common, famous color variant is called "Kohaku"...those are the big white ones with large red-orange blotches.  I know "kohaku" means "amber" in Japanese...so that makes sense.  there are sub-groups of Kohaku though.  Like, if there are only two big red blotches, THAT Kohaku is known as "nidan" which means "two steps"...neat, eh?  It sucked me in and a search that should have taken ten minutes turned into a two-hour tutorial.  But now, of course, I can hold forth on the various varieties of koi that will be adorning my masks (although unfortunately I suspect I am far more fascinated by the details than just about everyone else...*shrug).  So, there's that.

Upshot is; the new masks are coming along swimmingly (don't hit or yell).

Tonight I'm watching Inuyasha on Adult Swim.  Even though I already have the whole series on DVD in Japanese, I still have a perverse need to watch the dubs.   Can't imagine why, as it is FAR better in Japanese.  Kappei Yamagichi's "Inuyasha" is SO superior to whatsisname's english version of IY in every way.  

So.  The translations are occasionaly unintentionally hilarious.  Inuyasha's various names for his various attacks with Tetsusaiga are a case in point.  Kaze No Kizu turns into "Windscar"...okay.  I can accept that.   The very cool Bakaryuhaa (and it is SO neat to hear Kappei do this one..."Baaakaa-ryu...HAAA!!!" *gut busts*) gets watered down and becomes "Backlash wave".  *shrug*  Meh.  Oh well.  BUT!  The bastardization that occurs when the incredible war cry "Kongousoha!!!" becomes "adamant ATTACK!"...well that deserves nothing but my contempt and derision.  Phhht.   That's just plain awful, and there's no excuse for it.  I call "no fair".  

*pouts*

And hey.  Is it just me or does "S-Cry-ED" embody everything that's awful and cliched and trite in anime?  I just can't stand that freaking anime.  I think it's mostly the music, because SO much anime music is SO amazingly good (Yoko Kanno's OSTs for Cowboy Bebop, Wolf's Rain, and Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex, The Pillows music for FLCL, Susumu Hirasawa's OST for Paranoia Agent...just to name a few)...yet the music for S-Cry-ED is unbelieveably BAD.  Unrepentantly awful.  It sounds like Japan's answer to Ricky Martin.  Imagine that.  A funky Japanese Ricky Martin.  ONE Ricky Martin is enough, thank you.  There's absolutlely no need to have a version of Ricky Martin in every country.  That fresh hell can wait for the afterlife, sometime after being burned in an eternal lake of fire (or, if you're only stuck in the fifth ring of hell, up to your neck in shit) becomes boring.  Then, by all means, trot out your Japanese Ricky Martin and let the screaming commence.

The war in Lebanon is, of course, upsetting.  I dutifully swallow my daily dose of CNN just to keep abreast of what's going on there.  Today, four UN observers got themselves pretty much blown to bits in Beirut by an apparently calculated Israeli air strike.  They had been in constant radio contact with Israeli forces during their tour of bombed out Southern Lebanon...when suddenly WHOOPS!  They got blowed up real good.  >:-/   Hope it wasn't because of the nasty things UN emergency relief chief  Jan Egeland was saying on Sunday about the Beirut bombings violating humanitarian law, eh?   *sigh*  Everything that's been happening in the world for, say, the last five years or so (let's say, just for a reference point, since the 2001 presidential election...) has made me think, feel, and sound like a conspiracy theorist.  I don't LIKE being this way.  I feel like freaking Oliver Stone, for crying out loud.  And yet, I seem unable to stop making these obvious connections. 

Yeah!  Aside from stupid tv and various Middle East woes,  not much else penetrates my shell of indifference these days.  I took a lovely ride along the banks of the Niagara River with Char yesterday.  Really, a VERY neat bike trail that we have hardly ever used (largely because one has to cross the border...which these days involves showing a passport and getting quizzed by sceptical-looking border agents...yuk).  We'll have to start making that a regular trip though, because PRETTY.  Everything's just greener and lovelier and nicer-looking from the Canadian shore.

Back to work!  When in doubt, make stuff.  That's MY motto.