Sean Daily is an English major from New Jersey now living in Las Vegas, the Other City of Lights. "I consider 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' to be comfort reading, I like the al pastor tacos at Tacos Mexico and I count among my literary influences the Chainsaw from 'Doom'. 'RRRRRR! You don't like that, do you, Mr. Undead Marine! RRRRRR!'"
Shanoah Alkire is our Discordian at large. "Born in Santa Cruz, I grew up in Grass Valley and the Bay Area, and now lurk in Las Vegas. My literary influences include Ray Bradbury,
Lewis Carroll, and Douglas Adams. I also program as a hobby,
and currently maintain the Gtk port of Angband. You can find
a rather old bio of me here."
I know, Shanoah. I realize that I crossed the Rubicon by putting up a Naruto hip-hop AMV.
That Skittles video wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, though. Possibly it was because it was put together by someone who knew what he was doing and threw every video editing trick he had at it. Or possibly it was because those two bands knew English, which for some reason softened the blow.
But it does illustrate a valid point: even a shut-in freak like me can get tired of Japan. You can only see too many anime AMV’s (which would make them anime anime music videos) before you start to develop symptoms of saccharine toxicity.
So, as an antidote, how about a Bugs Bunny AMV? This is an AMV by whitehartentertain with Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody and 1957’s What’s Opera, Doc? (the “Kill the waaaabbit! Kill the waaaabit!” episode, and about the only time you’ll see Elmer Fudd dancing ballet) entitled, possibly appropriately enough, Bohemian Whapsody.
You realise the can of worms you’ve just opened up by playing Naruto rap, right? You see, I found Damaged when I was looking through Koopiskeva’s related videos, after stumbling upon this one, which I found a bit scary, but fascinating. And now it is… appropriate[1]:
This song is being sung by two, count them, two Japanese hip-hop bands. The main group is the Heartsdales, two sisters who were born in Japan, but spent a lot of time when they were growing up in New York before moving back. They are joined by another group called SOUL’d OUT. The name of the song is Candy Pop. *shudder*
The anime this is set to is one I only watched one episode of, but always meant to watch more of, because it’s one of these ones that messes with you. It is called The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and the main character basically has an unconcious ability to control reality that kicks in when she gets bored..
[1] And here I was set to post a nice little video about a kitty cat with laser beams shooting out of its eyes, too…
Well, we’re back to doing anime (NOOOOOOOOOOO). Think I’ll post an AMV on my favorite Dragonball Z-with-ninjas ripoff, Naruto!
“I’m a ninja that doesn’t do any actual ninja stuff like sneaking around! But I can nuke a city block with my General Jack Ripper Chakra! And I’m going to be the strongest Saiyen I mean ninja! NYAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHH!”
There’s a lot of screaming in Naruto (and in most shonen Japanimation, I’ve found), which makes Soulja Boy and Arab’s YAHHH! so eerily appropriate.
Well, that was a bizarre piece of stop motion video. Of course, I do like Sledgehammer, and have been known to like bizarre vidoes; Fishheads, anyone?
Today, I’m going to go somewhat back to anime, but not opening or closing themes. You may recall me playing the Neon Genesis Evangelion opening theme a few days ago. This is an AMV that amounts to a character sketch of one of its characters. Appropriately, it is named Damaged Rei-mix:
This is set to the song Damaged (808 Remix), by Plummet. The fractured nature of the video and the song fit very well with the character Rei, who is a very fractured person. When you meet her, she is shy, and withdrawn. She often appears cold and emotionless, and seldom speaks. Her character develops through the series, becoming more human, and there are indications of why she is the way she is. (What number Rei are we on by the end of the series?)
I felt this video captured her personality well, and was a particularly good one, in any case, which is why I decided to share it…
90% of this song is actually samples from Alice in Wonderland, and, of course, and animation is all Alice in Wonderland as well. Seems a bit hypnotic, with is appropriate for the animation in question…
Ugh. Wicked. I could only get a quarter of the way through that. Way too depressing. It’s kind of like watching Revenge of the Sith. You know things are going to go to shit at the end, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
But while we’re on the subject of putting adult twists on beloved children’s classics, let’s consider the ouef (literally, the three-cheese omelet) of Walt Disney. Disney cartoons are wholesome family fun, right? Well, they are, until you start breaking down the themes in several feature-length Disney cartoons:
Sleeping Beauty: Betrayal, poisoning, a fairly intense fight with a demonic-looking dragon
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: Betrayal, poisoning
The Lion King: Betrayal, fratricide, attempted infanticide, vengeance
Hercules: A fairly creepy interpretation of Hades and the Greek afterlife
Bambi: A child all but sees his mother get shot
Hunchback of Notre Dame: Betrayal, prejudice, romantic rivalry
Beauty and the Beast: Prejudice, curses, romantic rivalry
I’m not saying Disney is Edgar Allen Poe or even bush-league Stephen King (read, most of Stephen King’s work lately). And Lady knows Disney movies have more than enough treacle and glurge diluting the good stuff. All I’m saying is that when Calledkidblast strings them together and sets them to P. Diddy’s Come With Me (with melody from Led Zep’s When the Levee Breaks), they suddenly look… kind of cool.
Well, Shanoah, looks like Jonathon Coulton needs to meet Jim Infantino. He doesn’t need drugs to get high. He gets high on life!
And his life is very stressful.
This AMV - appropriately titled Disney Guys Are Addicted to Stress, courtesy of Calledkidblast - is based on a version of Stress that showed up on Dr. Demento’s 30th anniversary collection Dementia 2000 . Infantino later formed Jim’s Big Ego and cut a down and funky version on the band’s 2000 album Noplace Like Nowhere. And what cartoon character is funkier, or has more stress in his life, than Cowboy Bebop’s Spike Spiegel?
Well, you know Sean, it’s kind of hard for me to pull out a good J-Pop song, simply because I’ve played a lot of my favorites here already. But, well, Tenchi Muyo always has good music (note that I do not include Tenchi in Tokyo as part of Tenchi Muyo), so I’ll go with an obscure song from there.
Taihou wa kaze makase (Leave the arrest to the wind) ~ POLICE MAGIC
Lyrics by Natsuko Kodou; Vocals by Yuko Mizutani
If you’re at all familiar with Tenchi Muyo, you know what a major flake Mihoshi is. This song is from her perspective, and is perfectly in character. Here is Theresa Martins translation, pulled from this page. Keep in mind that this is more of a direct translation then a singable one. And there is at least one spot here that is parodying another song, which somewhat gets lost on me. (Note that the voiceovers in this video are not included in the translation)
Where did you go? Wait a minute, Mr. Criminal.
If you hide, I can’t arrest you.
Oh dear, because of my missiles that missed,
the whole city is full of holes, isn’t it.
The moon has waned,
I wonder if it’s also because I shot it.
It’s a POLICE MAGIC!
If you wanna see me,
You can whistle whenever you want!
A written apology, good heavens!
Write it with me?
What kind of crime did you commit?
‘Cause I really don’t know very well, but…
It’s okay. The crime is not major or minor
not pine nor bamboo nor plum
[not worst nor worse nor bad].
I’ll also chase
the cat with the fish in its mouth.
It’s a POLICE MAGIC!
If you gonna need me,
You can whistle whenever you want!
What, oh dear, I can’t stop.
I’ve been overtaken. Wait up!
Well, well, a screw in a place like this.
One came off, oh dear.
Although I am on the job
for the sake of interstellar peace…
O.K. POLICE MAGIC!
If you wanna see me…
I’ve lost sight of him.
I’ll leave it to the wind, to search him out.
A wind in space… is there any such thing?…
POLICE MAGIC!
If you wanna see me,
You can whistle whenever you want!
If you leave it to me,
I’ll resolve it soon! All right!
Oh, now you’ve done it; Little Shop of Horrors is somewhere on my top list of favorite movies. Next time you see it, see if you spot Danny John Jules, the guy who plays Cat on Red Dwarf. He’s only onscreen for 5 seconds or so, but he’s there…
I think part of the reason why they changed the ending is because Rick Moranis as Seymour was a more likeable character then he was on broadway.
They also cut several songs from the Broadway version for the movie (and added one: “Mean Green Mother”). I’ve heard them; I own a copy. And now I’l play a few. The composer, incidentally, was Alan Menken. You may recognize his name from a half dozen Disney movies…
Since you started with the Dentist, he had other songs in the Broadway version as well:
I Found A Hobby
Yeah, this is bad quality, but, hey, it’s more background for Orin. Into bondage at 13. Makes sense for his character. This was bonus material on the cd; it didn’t actually make it on Broadway. It feels like an alternate song for “Dentist!”.
And don’t you think his character deserved a long drawn out death scene? He got one originally:
Now (It’s Just the Gas)
I love this duet. I kind of wish I’d gotten to see Steve Martin do this song. This song just has great twists of phrases in it.
That’s not all they cut; there was originally more backstory, a lot of which seems to be on the net in the form (sigh) of Anime AMVs.
The Worse He Treats Me
This twisted little song was another that was cutfrom the Broadway play, but ended up on the Broadway cd. I don’t know what it says that I’m not totally sure if this is about Audrey & Orin or Seymour & Mr. Mushnik…
Mushnik & Son
And yes, Mushnik actually decided to adopt Seymour when he got successful in the Broadway version. You should be glad it cuts off where it does; the cd included another minute that was rather silly…
All right, today I decided to go with an anime theme, and I’m specifically doing with ones with a “Neko“[1] theme.
The last video in this batch is not worksafe, incidentally. I originally had that one in a draft by itself as “Catgirl Hentai”, and I’ve kept certain comments from that. ^_^
This could also be considered to have a theme of “catchy songs that get stuck in your head”:
Neko Mimi Mode
I love this opening. It’s so random. And I couldn’t resist watching a show with a vampire catgirl, anyways. Enjoyed the show, too. The first few episodes, anyways.
Neko Hanten!
This is from Ranma 1/2, and as you can see, is a slideshow to the song. This song is basically Shampoo advertising for her restaurant, the Cat Cafe. And it’s catchy as all hell.
And to warn you, the next video is from a hentai game.
Neko Kawaii Gari
It’s cute. It’s Hentai. It involves underage[2] catgirls. And its Engrish.
So why have I watched it so many times?
Dunno. Cat girl fetish?
And would I buy this hentai game if I came across it in a store? Oh, hell, probably.
And, yes, I know you’re reading this in the draft section, Sean. ^_- (From Sean:Darn you and your uncanny knowledge of my kinks, Shanoah! DARN YOU TO HEEEEEECCCCCCKKKKKK!)
Actually, from what I’ve read, looks like the cat girls in this game are terminally ill, and it may actually have a plot and backstory.
If you want to find out more, you might check the ending music. I’ll warn you that it’s rather sad and depressing, though.
[1] Japanese for cat. But I’m sure you already know that.
[2] Well, they look under 18, anyways. Maybe cat girls age slower then humans? Or it may just be better explained by the fact that in Japan, the age of consent varies anywhere from 13 to 18.[3]
[3] If you’re interested, 13 is national law. Most prefactures override it with local laws, pushing the age up to 18 or so.[4]
[4] Often with Clintonesque definitions of sex, IIRC…
