The easiest way to sell a science fiction story is to sprinkle it with some techo whitewash that even sci-fi nerds need to speculate about. We find these “dark” technologies in movies like Terminator and The Matrix. These adventures are populated with antagonist of metal, wire, and “artificial” intelligence that for some reason seems all too real an intelligence.

For an anime reference, we find it in stories such as Serial Experiments Lain. Lain was the first show that came to mind as I watched Denno Coil. However, there is already a drastic difference in story between the two shows. Lain was darker in general than Denno Coil. What the two share is their atmosphere of high technology. The world is an ambient computer generated illusion. It’s all an allusion to the way many people see the current world.

These things take on a mystical aura because we either cannot understand or do not comprehend the gibberish. It’s not even necessary to vial much of it with made up words. Story tellers can use the current vocabulary of technical terms to confuse even the most technically minded among us. It plays to the notion that many believe anything to be possible given the proper tools, just not feasibly doable by those experiencing the stories.

Where I’m from people are simply afraid of computers, the internet, and machines that seem smart. Ask the average person to do something with a computer; you will probably be met with a blank stare. What? Me? I can’t remember my email password half the time.

The other half, “I don’t even have an email.”

It’s a curious development of the technological world that the technically inclined find “user friendly” computers harder to use than the ones less so. Simplifying things down to the lowest common denominator has had the adverse effect of making them more mysterious to the general user and more irritating to the more than general users. Still, for the most part, everyone is clueless about some things.

It’s that mysteriousness in the things that pervade modern life that drives a show like Denno Coil. In the real world we are actually surrounded by machines, wires, and information. Where in the show it is a false reality that requires special visors, no special vision is needed for our worlds. We know we are swimming in this stuff.

All this coupled with the natural tendency to fill in the gaps of knowledge with what conveniently makes sense, magic. It works because it seems possible. More than that, it’s fun because it’s not possible. Not now, but maybe in the future.

This kids…well…she’s a little “slow”

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I wasn’t sure if I should use Dennou or Denno. I made the arbitrary decision to drop the ‘u.’

Also, it seems its demographic is younger anime viewers.

I can’t say that it moves me very much that I’ve been blogging for a year. Actually, it hasn’t really been a year. I’m not quite sure when I created this blog. I know it was in June because that’s what my Blogger profile says. I could probably go on a hunt for the confirmation email from Blogger that I received when I created the account, but that would be a waste of time. June first is good enough, and “good enough” is my motto.

Words to live by babe.

For the most part blogging is and was a distraction from work and school, much like anime. My first couple of post were the standard episode reviews, but I quickly determined that it wasn’t going to work out. Episode reviews were too detailed. I didn’t have time to follow and blog an entire season.

Time was the biggest factor between then and now. When I first started blogging I had a lot more time to watch anime than I currently do now. Sure I work and I have school but who needs sleep? They say for every hour of class one needs to study for three. So, I should have been studying for 18 hours a week. That wasn’t the case until recently.

So, the blog’s structure follows my habits and schedule. I don’t have time to blog everything I watch; therefore, I blog only a subset. I cannot post everyday; therefore, I post randomly. That seems to fit well with everything else. I used to have a “once every week” post rule. I stopped that for two reasons. One, no one really cared. Two, I couldn’t keep up.

This blog is really an evolving work. It isn’t anything like it was when I started. Everything from the type of writing to the way the blog page is formatted has changed.

I’ve even changed a little over the year.

Movement is good.
Stagnation is the worst.
I don’t really want to stay still.
Have blog, will travel.

Such is the life of one anime fan.

Q&A

What’s with the bad poetry?

- Well, sometimes I have this need to write bad poetry in order to express how a show made me feel. One of the main focuses of this blog has been on the emotional impact of the stories. After all, if anime didn’t move me I probably wouldn’t watch it. Expect even worse poetry in the future.

Why Blogger and not WordPress?

- Click on this link to answer your question.

How tall are you?

- about 182 cm

What type of anime is your favorite?

- I like a lot of different anime genre, but my favorite are mostly mushy shoujo stories.

Well, it looks like the lawyers in Singapore have managed to produce a wave of fear through the anime blogger community there. The fact is that the only reason that anime downloaders in the states have not met with the same problems is because the major anime distributors either do not pursue the matter or cannot afford to massively sue the thousands of people downloading anime subs.

Maybe the distributors here see a benefit to having anime bloggers offer free advertisements and a platform for web ads (eg adsense). All this could be seen as a double edged sword from the point of view where maximal profits are the goal. It has all been endlessly debated in the past.

I think the oddest notion I come across is the belief that anything one does on the Internet is anonymous. Trust me when I say this, if someone was so inclined to want to know what you were doing online it is not too difficult to track your activities. It requires some high level of access to get a total picture but it is possible. Most of the data transferred from your computers is not encrypted. Your ISP logs your activities, even if it isn’t required by law. Every website you visit logs your visit and grabs all the available data about you such as where you are accessing from, your IP address, time of access, length of visit, operating system, browser, etc. There are various exploits available that will allow malicious people to do things to your computer that aid in all this tracking.

The government (US) knows that this data is available. That’s why there are efforts to make this stuff available to law enforcement; by proxy, corporate lawyers. Much of it already is available when the correct process is followed to request it. The movement is to make it even easier to obtain.

There are ways to protect yourself such as Tor or content distribution systems like Freenet. Of course, there is a price to be paid and that is largely in performance. Also, these projects have wider aims and goals than avoiding being picked up for illegal downloads.

We all like to think of ourselves as different and special, but there is a unique aspect to anime bloggers and downloaders. It’s something I do not hear too much from others who engage in these activities but with different genres. Many anime fans want to keep their distributors in business. There are calls to support the distributors by buying their content.

It also helps that most US fans prefer that anime is dubbed rather than subbed.

In the end, like many things these days, we little people operate at the whim of the guys with the deep pockets. When they come calling, there really isn’t anything left to do but pack up and close shop, or we can change what we do.

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This was a quick note while I had some free time. I just dropped in on the nano front page and saw some interesting post that I wanted to comment on. Back to what I was doing….

Okay, first off, I want to say that DiGiKerot is officially a comic genius. First DiGi elevates the fruitiness of blog layouts to an art form, and now this comic has been keeping me laughing for over a day now. My being easily amused not withstanding, it really lifted my spirits because I’ve been overworking myself for the last two weeks. Hence, the total lack of post-age. Of course, it’s not like I’m pulling a karmaburn.

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If one searches for “Claymore” on google, one gets something like this in the first few results. Personally, I wasn’t aware that a Claymore was a type of sword. When I first heard the title of this series the Claymore APM came to mind. There are a few reasons for this. One, is that I had already known about the devices. The other is that I knew a guy who wanted to work as a diplomatic security agent. He had this thing for airsoft, and in his weapons cache were a few mock claymore mines. I always saw him cleaning his AS M16. I should have asked him if he named it.

Anyway, I digress.

My once broad list of shows that I had been following has been cut down to but a fragment of its previous grandeur. My heart is low fore I was really hoping that I could spend the summer impersonating a potato. Woe is me.

After episode two of Claymore I was ready to give it up. Not for any particular reason other than I had to make room in my schedule for other shows. Now that I have watched up to episode seven I guess I’ll stick it out.

There are plenty of good aspects here. First among them are the Claymores themselves. They were rather bland at first, but there has been some effort to liven them up a bit. I think those who wanted a more stoic version will be disappointed as episode seven introduced several of them that are the complete opposite of what the audience had originally been given as a typical claymore personality in Clare.

Clare was presented as the classic stoic lone warrior. We knew she wasn’t all that good or bad. She was presented in a gray area. While working for the “organization,” she simply went about her duties without fail.

That makes for a rather boring story. So, throw in an abused kid, some monsters, a couple of naked-loli scenes, and of course the revelation that she is half Yoma, which are the monsters she seeks to kill. Now, you got yourself an anime. There is something more though. That’s only during the recent episodes with Claymore Teresa. Clare’s story seems to be unconnected for the time being. Or, are the last few episodes a flashback? With all the “Clare’s” in this show I’m getting a little confused.

Typically, I try to find shows that offer more than Claymore seems to be offering. That is I search for stories with more depth and emotional impact. However, I found myself doing a, “That was awesome!” several times an episode while watching Claymore. I guess that’s why I kept watching it despite not really wanting to make the time for it.

On the other hand, it’s not like Idolm@sters is scratching the depths of the human soul or anything.

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I’m still hoping for something really good out of Seirei no Moribito (Guardian of the Sacred Spirit).

Rome x Juliet. . .well, you all know how I feel about that (all three of you).

Sola is ~~~~soooooooo ~~~~~~~~ssssssssssssoooooooooooooooo~~~~~yeah!

I was feeling a little guilty that my last post titled “Violence” didn’t have any violence in it. I figured it must have been a bit of a disappointment to some. So, to appease the blood lust of CnN readers, if only a little, I thought I would select some caps from a show I happened to be watching at the time of the post.

This show was actually a bit of an inspiration for the last post on violence. I was planning to merge this into the last post, but I didn’t want to have images in the last post due to the topic.

I know I’m not the only one who has watched this recently. Like many others, I happened upon Dai Mahou Touge by reading a recommendation from Harbin on THAT anime blog‘s post about Club to Death Angel Dokuro-chan. BTW, Club to Death Angel is freak’in hilarious.

Synopsis: They should have call this show Murder Princess.

What is a magical girl show without the magical transformation scene. Unfortunately, Punie doesn’t actually transform. Unless you count going from cute to homicidal a transformation.

I did a google on “Tokarev.” What comes up the most is the TT-33 pistol used throughout WWII into the 1950′s. It also appears to be popular with gun collectors (wiki).

Off screen there are cute little mongooses ripping snakes to shreds, literally.

The fight between Punie and the former princess. Apparently, princesses can put the smack-down. You’ll like the end of this fight.

Probability of offing yourself in a Russian Roulette game with a six-load revolver is P = 1/6. Probability with a semi-automatic pistol is P=1. I can offer a probability distribution if necessary.

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Edit 07:28: Those are general probabilities that do not take into account a chance for mechanical or chemical failure with the gun or bullets. I guess it also assumes a random position of the bullet in relation to the firing pin. Then there are the factors such as…

Edit 07:47: Hey, apparently these were available last year online.