Wednesday 25 May 2011

Bibio.

Ok, so i'm currently working on a couple different articles, all at various stages of completion. I apologize about the delay in posts but i promise it will be worth it :) As thanks for your patience, here's a song getting a lot of play time with me at the moment :3


Do yourself a favour. Turn the lights down low, kick back, relax. I love chilling to this track. It's by a music producer in the UK, Bibio. This track is off the album "Ambivalence Avenue", consisting mostly of experimental electronic tracks, i can listen to this entire album from start to finish... 
~~~
Hopefully, i'm mixing things up pretty well so far. I want to introduce at least one new thing to every follower that they might not have considered, or even known about if it hadn't been for this blog. If you discover just one new thing, it's all been worth it :) 


Stay tuned for a bunch more (mostly animated) tv shows (from all around the world!) and possibly more music videos if i'm taking too long ^_^;

Thursday 19 May 2011

Highschool of the Dead.

A change of pace here with an anime i've watched recently. I'm a pretty big fan of the zombie genre. Not necessarily horror, just zombies. I think it's the survival thing. It's formulaic. I like the decay of human morals in the face of apocalypse. And secret bases. And looting. Seriously, zombie apocalypse has to be one of the best ways to go.

 In this series, we follow a group of students, a school nurse and a young girl as they struggle to survive in a world that has fallen to the dead in a matter of hours. And falls to the living with their nuclear holocausts, shortly after that. Hectic. The action scenes are great, covering sword and gunplay, it's got a bit of everything.



Not to detract from it's awesome plot, character dynamics and overall animation style, the first thing you will probably notice is.. The fan service. For those not familiar with anime, wikipedia defines fan service as the following:


In Japanese manga and animeFan service (ファンサービス fan sābisu)fanservice, or service cut (サービスカット sābisu katto),is material that is designed to amuse or excite the audience with especially derived content. It is about "servicing" the fan - giving the fans "exactly what they want" – and usually refers to "gratuitous titillation".


So, basically, boobs and panties. 


Pretty much.


Honestly, most of the time i don't even notice it, it's just a part of the culture when watching anime. But this show is seriously pushing it. A lot of what the zombie theme is about is the gratuitous gore. But most of the time, instead of showing the action, you get a close-up of their squirming panties. It's quite hilarious. At other times, just frustrating and annoying. But, honestly, if fan service is the only thing you have to complain about, it's not a bad anime, i guess.


Like i said, they're pushing it.

So. Gratuitous titillation aside, this show has all the classic zombie elements with it's own original twist. Being set inside the school in the first episode, the students are limited as far as weapons are concerned, it makes for some interesting improvisation. Also, one of the characters is your typical trench-coat-wearing, otaku, gun-nut whose biggest issue is pretending he isn't having the most awesome time of his mouth-breathing, basement-dwelling, geek-fest life.

"Finally, Wood-work class comes in handy!"

It's interesting to see how the different characters, from different backgrounds and social circles, deal with the inevitable decay of what they believe and how they think they should feel about hacking down the animated corpses of their former lives. I enjoy that they only really reveal themselves a little at a time.

Indeed.

So, should you check it out? If you're a zombie, anime, boobs and gore fan, yes. But unless you fit into a minimum of 3 of these categories, i wouldn't bother. The core story is good enough to keep the casual anime viewer interested but the fan service is seriously overboard. So, if you can handle that, i say check it out! 





Here's a video of the opening credits, to get an idea of the animation style. Cool, punky tune, too. If you've seen it, let me know what you think.

I know this won't be everyone's cup of tea, so let me know of some shows you like in the comments and i will definitely check them out! :)



Foster the People.

This band hasn't released much yet but I hope all of their songs are as good or better than this :) this track, "Pumped up kicks" grew on me pretty quick but I think I'll wait until an album is released before I make my final judgement. This is basically a filler post because I wasn't expecting 19 followers in 3 days.. ^_^; So here's something quick to chew on until I get around to doing something more detailed :) enjoy

Monday 16 May 2011

Ugly Americans.

I'm not going straight into my first review with the best show i've ever seen, but rather a show i stumbled upon lately that has given me a few chuckles. Ugly Americans is a show based around Mark Lilly, a social worker at the department of integration in an alternate version of New York filled with crazy monsters and ghoulies.

Just a small portion of the colourful cast of characters.

Werewolf attacking people on the subway? Maybe he just needs some counselling. Two-headed monster fighting with itself? Maybe some mediation is in order. Just struggling to make it in the Big Apple after a long and weary journey from your home planet? Mark Lilly is the man for all these jobs and more.

"Is that your brain? You gon' eat that?"

This coupled with a zombie house mate, a succubus girlfriend/boss and his partner at work being a wizard makes for some awesome situational banter. Much like Futurama, a visual gag is that much funnier when something with plenty of WTF potential is considered completely normal by the characters in this world.

"You what?"

Personally, i think the entire show is a metaphor for racism, prejudice, life in the big city, stereotypes, the difficulties of adjusting to a new place, being human.. But the fact that the show doesn't constantly revisit this theme in an effort to shove some morality in the viewers face as undeniable proof that deep and meaningful thought was involved in the making of a sometimes disagreeable show makes me feel like the makers of the series are giving me some creedence as the audience. I enjoy interpreting this show the way i want to and i hope that was the producers intent. 

"Magic!"

Overall, i say definitely check this one out, it might be your cup of tea, it might not. But you can't deny the humanity of the show. I think we should all be more like Mark Lilly. That dude can handle a bad day. Like, really.

Leonard Powers is one of my favourite characters.

 Currently, there is only one 14-episode season out but it was announced by Comedy Central that another 14-episode season is on the way, release date TBA. 

If you've seen it before, let me know what you think! If there's another show like it that you want me to review, let me know in the comments! And if you haven't seen it, check it out!  

You might even learn a thing or two.

Sunday 15 May 2011

First Post.

I think i have pretty good taste in all things entertaining. This blog is going to be a comprehensive database of the things i watch and either recommend you do (or don't) watch. My main taste in shows/movies are: comedy action, martial arts, animation/anime, satire, dark humour, among other things and in no particular order. With Music? Well, i tend to rate most music according to the sound, not genre. But lately i've been loving electro, indie, poppy stuff. 12 months ago i was listening to metal. Go figure. Hope you enjoy my blog :)