otaku syndrome

I must be feeling better today considering the fact I'm devoting a great deal of my concentration to Simounsian biology...

I really should get back to watching that anime.

A small cacophony emanates from behind my laptop monitor. The cheap speakers muffle the sound of some song by The Dillinger Escape Plan. I try to ignore it, but that only seems to magnify the noise. Noise in front of me, noise within me, I think wryly.

A few hours ago I had been laughing over a new copy of the omnibus edition of Azumanga Daioh. It's hard not to become nostalgic over that series. I had read it once years ago. A friend on the east coast had loaned me a copy of the series a half-year before it became popular. Reading the story was like reminiscing about old friends. While Ayumu "Osaka" Kasuga is everyone's favorite character (I named a computer after her), Yomi is my personal favorite.

As with many stories of this kind, I often imagine myself trading places with one of the characters. I add those character's experiences to my own, taking with me the memories pleasant or touching. I'm sure I'm not the only one that does this. One could argue that the first person perspective by its nature puts you behind the eyes of the narrator. When presented with a choice, I often gravitate to characters similar to me, or similar to how I wish to be. Depending on the events of the story, this empathy can either be inconsequential or can leave me stunned.

This can be a kind of therapy. In every life, there are regrets, "missing" experiences, and missed opportunities. I have my own share. Taking the place of a character in a story can often lessen the ache left by all the gaps in my experiences. Unfortunately, this does have the nasty side effect.

I hate finishing the story! As I get closer and closer to the end of the book (or movie, or series), I feel the desire just to simply stop, leaving it unfinished. In my mind, the untied plotlines hang in midair, a lingering question that goes on forever. I don't want the story to end, because then my contact with that world is severed. I will never know what happens in the lives of the characters from that point onward. It's almost sorrowful.

It's rare that I can keep this up for long. Eventually my need to know the ending gets the better of me. I sit down and rush my way through the ending. I never can quite outrun the lingering sadness of finishing a particularly enjoyable tale. Azumanga's ending isn't particularly climatic, but it is rather touching.

What happens now? I ask myself. I still want to know the lives the characters following the story. Sometimes I make up the continuing lives of the characters, sometimes not. Less often I imagine a story set in the same world (Haibane Renmei is one example) but never quite get around to writing it.

I haven't gotten around to writing much of anything lately. Paper Girl has been stalled for weeks now. I had also made a promise to myself to post more often, but both of these tasks have been very, very difficult. I can't seem to work past the noise in my mind, the cacophony of voices that warn me that others will set their eyes upon my ragged sentences and click their tongues in disappointment. In the meantime, I bury myself in book after book, wondering about in a haze of psudo-nostalgia.

A background I created with some imges from Azumanga Diaoh. This was the desktop image of one my computers for 3 years.

Over the last week I have bee devouring reading material. I suspect it isn't so much that I've become a voracious reader, but that my material has been shorter and easier to snack upon.

I've done away with the first 9 volumes of the Claymore manga. While I enjoyed the anime, the last 3 episodes were terribly unsatisfying. It happened near the end of the War in the North arc -- exactly where it diverged from a what had been a faithful following of the manga. Sadly, my loaned supply of books was exhausted in just four nights. I had also done away with volume 5 of Neon Genesis Evangelion: Angelic Days and Multiple Personality Detective Psycho. Reading the former  felt odd as I'm sure I had only read volume 1. The latter I had read too quickly, and had become lost in the prose several times.

Otaku Syndrome aside, I have been consuming a more traditional book. I was loaned Stephen King's On Writing some weeks ago. I hadn't picked it up until I finished rereading books 1-3 of The Vampire Chronicles. Now more than half-way through it, I am beginning to suspect this is another part of a conspiricy among my friends to make me a proper writer.

On Writing begins with a short life story of the author himself. It was surprisingly honest, lingering one his faults more than I would have expected. He focused on his writing and how it developed from his childhood through his first breakthrough novel. I'm jealous of him in a way: While I have been often told I have writing talent, I have often ignored it. "Writing!?" I'd cry, "I can't make a living on that!" Programming still remains my true love.

My artistic ability had an earlier start. I had exercised it extensively during the City of Light: InterLock project. I was encouraged by a group of 3D artists in a chat room to improve and create more. Yet I still treat it the same as writing when compared to my skill with technology. When looking at my artwork my coworkers often ask me, "What are you doing here?" as if I had made some terrible mistake in choosing my career. I always answer practically: "Rich artists are dead artists, I am neither."

On Writing then moves on to the elements of the craft. In a few short pages, he conveyed to me what all my English professors had failed to do. If they had only handed me this book instead of harping about the horror of the passive tense and handing out mind-numbing exercises on identifying the elements of a sentence, I might have enjoyed their classes.

There was, however, one notable exception. I did actually enjoy my college Creative Writing class. I put in a surprising amount of effort into each assignment. He let me turn in assignments days or weeks late without docking my grade. He told me, "I don't grade you as a student, I grade you as a writer." Perhaps that's what my earlier education lacked, a writer speaking to me as a writer.

I just hope I'm worthy of the mantle.

I'm not one of these people who posts reviews often. Mostly I've come to keep my opinions about consumable media quiet. I think part of this is that I had very few allies who liked the same things that I did. Everyone else seemed quick to make fun of me for this reason. When I first got into anime, I always had to explain it to people that "Yes, it is animated, but it's not a cartoon. It's not something for kids just because it's drawn rather than acted." Roughly the same time I was big into electronica, and was mocked for my "videogame music". After a while, I just stopped trying. Why invite mockery?

Today I'm still into anime, but my music tastes have shifted toward heavy metal. Over the last month I've come to enjoy two particular creations in each genre. Curiously, both involve the French, and both involve the Japanese. Weird, huh?

Le Chevalier d'Eon

Le Chevalier d'Eon

The first is an anime series that's currently running through the fansubbing network. Le Chevalier d'Eon is a 24 episode series produced by Production I.G. The story centers around d'Eon de Beaumont, a knight of King Louis XV. It's pre-revolutionary France, and d'Eon's sister Lia is found floating down the Seine river in Paris. Her corpse bizarrely incorruptible, the church denies her a Christian burial. d'Eon dedicates himself to finding the killer.

d'Eon, however, soon finds himself plunged into a world of alchemy, Western magic, and royal intrigue. Thankfully, he's not alone -- ever.

Unable to go to Heaven, the spirit of Lia takes up residence in the body of her bother. At first, d'Eon did not notice this. When enraged or threatened, Lia takes control and completes the battle at hand. Spiritual possession is not a new subject in anime. Hana-Kimi -- one of my favorite manga -- also features a possession subplot. Other examples exist. What particularly drew me to this series, is what happens to d'Eon when Lia takes control.

Throughout the series, it's noted how similar d'Eon and Lia look. Indeed, a properly attired d'Eon would (and does) appear to be a splitting image of his sister. During battle d'Eon isn't simply possessed by her sister, but becomes her. Subtle details betray the transformation: Posture, lip coloration, eye design, and most obvious, a change in voice. This isn't a Ranma 1/2 style transformation with it verging on fantastical. You can see an example at wikipedia. The effect is so subtle that the characters even use this to their advantage at key moments. How far the transformation extends -- are there actual physical changes or not? -- has yet to be answered at the episode I'm currently at.

This isn't the only thing fascinating about the series. The story is deliciously laden with conspiracies, secret societies, and plots against royalty from several countries. A type of Alchemy and Western magic based on the Book of Psalms predominates the series. Even without all the gender changing, this is a wonderful series.

I was only incidentally attracted to this series due to the title. Another series I have yet to complete, Blood+, also makes copious use of the word Chevalier. Upon researching the series and it's titular transformation sequence, I had to see it myself. It sometimes can be curious watching a series set in France, with French characters, where everyone speaks Japanese. This can be a bit confusing for a native English speaker. Despite other "high-priority" series on my anime queue, such as Ergo Proxy and Nana, Le Chevalier d'Eon has moved to the top of my list.

Gojira - From Mars to Sirius Gojira - From Mars to Sirius

For the last year, I've developed in interest in Heavy Metal. I've been introduced to several fascinating bands in that time through my Sirius Satellite Radio subscription. While "anything heavy" sounded appealing at first, I've come to adore bands that edge more toward Progressive Metal, Post-Rock, and Sludge Metal. Many of these bands are (reportedly) drug influenced.

A few months ago a new song appeared on my receiver, "To Sirius" by Gojira. The DJs would always crack at the incidental relationship between the song title and the corporation name. Despite that, it was a spectacular song. When I finally remembered to look up the lyrics, I was even more impressed. "To Sirius" told the story of a group of beings that left a dying world to seek beings on a planet orbiting Sirius C. I hit record on my Stiletto 100 and repeated the song often.

One afternoon I decided to seek out the entire CD. It had been years since I liked a CD. A few songs, sure, but the entire CD had always been a miss. Lacuna Coil's Karmacode was an exception to that trend last year. I was also happy to find out that Gojira's latest, From Mars to Sirius was also an exception.

Much like "To Sirius" (the second to last track), the entire CD revolves vaguely around the same subject. While some tracks are brutal examples of metal with curiously spiritual lyrics, others are more wistful. I've found myself listening to the CD again and again. Even more strange, I listened to the tracks in the order in which they're given. From Mars to Sirius tells a story best read (or listened to) in order.

The band was originally named "Godzilla", after the famous Kaiju. Due to licensing problems, the band decided to adopt the original Japanese name "Gojira". The band, however, isn't Japanese. From their songs you can tell they are singing in English, and despite the death metal grunting, no accent. To my surprise, the band members are French. Given the pride in which native French speakers have in their language, this seems surprising to me. A French band with a Japanese name that sings in English; if that doesn't suggest it belongs in my menagery of tunes, go listen to it yourself.

Copied by eye off of the cover of the third tape in the series Serial Experiments Lain.

Lain Layer 8: RumorsWhile I had watched anime prior to 1999, no particular series grabbed me so completely as Serial Experiments Lain. It was Christmas vacation, and my friend Grant (from bakacafe) and I were wondering through a Suncoast Motion Picture Company store. Today the chain is all but gone, but at the time, it was the only place in Minnesota where you could get the newest anime.

At this point, we knew only the few shows provided to us by the Sci-Fi channel's Saturday Anime. The original film version of Ghost in the Shell made me a card-carrying Otaku overnight. Outside of that, we were exposed to a variety of anime movies. Most notably, Tenchi Muyo in Love. Neither of us knew about the OVA or Tenchi Universe, so the film came off as completely confusing. Despite that, neither of us could stop watching it.

While Suncoast provided a plethora of choices, the problem was that you were buying in the dark. Anime was no where as popular as it is now, and review sites were scarce. This posed a particular problem for two college-age Otaku with little to no money. Anime was terribly expensive. A single tape was $25 on average, quite a markup over domestically produced films.

We both found ourselves eying two different series -- The Tenchi Muyo OVA, and a curiously short series entitled Serial Experiments Lain. We both agreed that we'd buy half of each series. We spent the night watching them, first Tenchi. Suddenly, everything from the film we watched months and months ago made sense. It was a revelation. Obviously the movie was a continuation from the series. After some number of hours, we watched Lain.

By the end of it, we were stunned. What we had seen before paled in comparison to this. Even the style of the artwork was different. Unlike Tenchi, the characters seemed less stylized and more natural. The cover artwork was in stark contrast to other manga artwork. It was a gritty, cross-hatched window on a world that blended both the geometric style typical of anime, with a dingy, realistic sheen.

While I had been teaching myself to draw anime characters before, after watching lain, I tried to emulate ABe's gritty style. I wasn't successful until several years later, when I drew Novella #20. Even then our styles are markedly different. My style primarily relies on the grain of the paper. ABe's style relies on hatching to create darkened areas and depth. And there's the obvious point he's a far, far better artist than I can ever hope to become. Even today my artwork doesn't approach the level of naturalism in all of ABe's work.

Sometime between then and today, I discovered that there was a Lain art book: An Omnipresence in the Wired. The thought of an entire volume of images from my favorite artist was intoxicating. The problem was, by the time I had heard about it, the price of the books had skyrocketed. A short time after that, they were impossible to find anywhere. It was unfortunate, but I couldn't really afford to buy such a thing as a college student.

So, when I opened the gift bag containing a copy, I couldn't believe it. How did he find such a thing?

As it turns out, this isn't the original edition of the book, but rather a reprint. I hadn't noticed until I read the back of the book where ABe briefly explains what happens. Apparently, there were a number of problems with the production of the first book and it had to be canceled for "various reasons". Thankfully, there were more vocal fans than I in requesting a re-release. Although I've only had my copy in possession for a short time, I finding myself motivated to bring Novella into existence all the more.

Over the last few weeks, I've been trying to rework the story. Novella's character has been the primary target. I haven't been happy with her since the first Draft 3 outline. See seemed to bland and passive to be the locust of the story. I had hoped this would fix itself during the outline development, but it only seemed to get worse and worse. Novella, I hope, will be a more dynamic character in Draft 4, which I'm currently working on.

My original plans for Draft 4 was to work on it until the end of the year and then "quietly" begin to release comics in January of 2007. Work, unfortunately, has put considerable demands on me in the last month and I found myself working at the office, at home, on weekends... I managed to complete a good deal of that work on Tuesday this week, allowing me some time to relax and regain my bearings. Furthermore, I have the next week and a half off (with some exceptions), which will allow me more freetime to work on the story.

The question that remains is if I should start to produce comics starting next month. Originally, I had hoped for a two months to develop the script before going into production. Now it's only weeks from January, and I'm no further than I was in November. I would hate to delay again, since I've already spent a year developing the current outline. I'm uneasy starting now as I have several new ideas I want to introduce. Maybe I'm just nervous.

Gothy Rei modelJust when you think that Evangelion fandom is dying away, something like this comes along. Proof the Japanese have no shame? Probably.

Honestly, Ayanami Rei is my favorite character from the series. Back when I was working on City of Light: InterLock, I decided to borrow her character design for my character of Tera Rogue. Bluish-grey hair and red eyes have evolved into an anime archetype. InterLock never got anywhere, of course. The story is still somewhere in my notes, but I haven't a clue what to do with it, if anything.

For a while I was entertaining the idea of a large story involving Avatar://Create, a friend's idea for a story, Avatar://Alternity, and then finally Avatar://InterLock. It's an intriguing idea, perhaps I'll write it someday.

If I get around to writing anything that is! It's been a week since I posted my thought about the "Writing Lifecycle", and I've done nothing. I've tried a few times to sit down and produce something for the story, but nothing came of it. I began to suspect that I need to journal a bit first before I start hacking out a mind map.

One of the biggest ideas I would like to explore would be Novella coming out to her parents. Most parents do not react well to their child's gender dysphoria. What complicates matters is that most of the time, the condition is self-diagnosed. It's not an unheard of story for parents of a transperson to take their child from therapist to threapist until they hear something acceptable. Apparently, suicidal depression or general insanity is preferable to a change of sex. Sadly, it's also not an uncommon story for transpeople to be kicked out or outright disowned by their family. I expect Novella's parents to react in a similar negative fashion.

I feel Novella's situation would not be as extreme as either of these cases. Novella's family may initially ignore Novella's issues, but eventually condemn them when they realize that she's serious and clear minded. Family is an important subject to Novella, as she feels her intent to transition would result in her being disowned -- formally or not. I was thinking that this would become apparent during either Christmas vacation, or spring vacation during the school year. In the last revision I decided that the story covers one college year of time. With the vacations between chapters 2 and 3, and 3 and 4. I would like this to culminate over the Christmas holiday, but that may not be possible. If Novella reveals her intentions over Christmas vacation, there may not be enough time for it to effect the holiday. Instead, Novella may bring this up during the brief Thanksgiving break.

This makes for another problem. If Novella is obviously snubbed at Christmas, why would she return home for spring break? My thought is she may be guilty or feel obligated into visiting. This may explain why she returns half-way through break to find Akisa shortly after her first suicide attempt.

It's not likely I'll be working on this idea further this evening. In less then an hour, I'm going to a concert for one of my favorite bands, Tool. Tomorrow I should have some time.

I came up with Novella's outcry sometime last friday. Although I haven't watched more than a few of the series The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, I've watched enough to mock it's silliness. Half of the problem with my slow progress in watching the show is that I tend to watch the most anime when I'm flying somewhere for work purposes. I watch anime on my PSP for an hour or so before deciding to read or nap. This anime isn't exactly "plane safe". In case you're interested, I've watched Blood+, Noien, and parts of Nana on my travels.

I drew and shaded most of the left panel in about 4 hours. The right panel took a bit longer for no particular reason. Over all, coloring took the longest time. The reason was that I wasn't using a familiar application. In previous years, I had a copy of Photoshop at my disposal. When I bought my laptop, I found that I no longer had the photoshop install disk. After tearing apart my apartment, I still couldn't find it. My only option was the open-source GIMP.

I had used GIMP a few times over the last few years, but it's been only recently that I've really began to use it seriously. GIMP 2 is an excellent application, although very different from what I'm used to using. As a result, it took me a while to reproduce the same effect as I would have before. Overall, I'm impressed with the results. A free, easily downloadable application produced a reasonably good piece of artwork as the very expensive commerical equivalent. My faith in open-source is thus maintained. Unless I run into another complication, I intend to continue using GIMP to produce Novella.