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."
Just so this site isn’t totally dead, I thought I’d torture everyone with another bizarre anime thing. At first glance, I’d think it was IOSYS, but it’s actually some manner of Vocaloid thing of a song by LamazeP and noya.
The song’s titled in youtube as [Touhou PV] PoPiPo- [Tewi & Reisen], and appears to feature scary-looking vegetable juice.
While I’ve played Oingo Boingo’s “Little Girls” here before, I thought this Azumanga Daioh AMV of the song was pretty well done. (And it won first place in the comedy category at Nekocon X) That and I wanted to try to get back in the habit of posting here occassionally…
Let’s see here. We’ve gone from mothers to mother love to mother *ucking on this blog. You realize it’s only a matter of time before we turn into crazy incestuous hillbilly cannibals with a talent for killing hot college girls in highly creative ways. Yep, I’ve seen the movies. We’re going to turn into braineaters.
Courtesy of JackrabbitMcGee, who is officially, forever and for aye, a Misfits fan. Anyone can take some video editing software and marry their favorite anime to their favorite song. But when you animate your own video for a song, even if it’s just rough pencils… well, my friend, you have indeed proven your dedication to your band, and it’s the kind of dedication that makes suicide vests possible.
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?