New Rating System

I used to be a firm believer that film should always be rated on a four-star basis, but, honestly it's not worth it to have nine different sets of star graphics for the blog here, so we've instituted a new rating system that runs across the board (I'll have to go back and adjust the rating guide accordingly.)

Here's the quick run down, although the wacky graphics probably are decent enough indicators on their own:











I like to think that this might be pretty self explanatory.











2-2.5 tends to be mostly reserved for fans (music) are hardcore completionists (everything else) who absolutely have to watch, absorb, and then be able to reference everything in the history of time. Not recommended except in some cases of being bad, but somewhat interesting to see/hear for the experience alone.











As a general rule, I like more things than I hate, so 3-3.5 is where the good stuff kicks in. From 3, which is usually worth a spin or a viewing to 3.5 which boarders on "damn good" territory.










Again, these are the things you should be hitting the refresh button on the piratebay every few hours to see if they've leaked yet and buying a retail copy (or two) the second they hit the shelves (or the in case of my old-ass anime reviews, hop in your car and go pick up a box set asap.)






Once a year, maybe, something comes out that is too impossibly good for words. Just crazy retarded excellent in every possible way.

I am making an active effort to take some of the mystique out of five-bombs, though. I get tired of them being reserved excluslvly for Akira or Beatles and Dylan albums. Believe it or not, "perfect" albums have been released since the 1960s. I'm all for classics worship, but, hey, it's a modern world and eventually I've got to beleive that not everything new that comes out is crap.


aaaand there you have it. We now have a unified system. All hail big brother. All hail west texas. Cheers.

Memories :: Apologies :: Cartography

Apologies for the lack of content as of late. It seems sometimes that my efforts here are forever doomed to come in fits and starts, though, this time I had a reasonable excuse. My father passed away a few weeks ago after years of dealing with complications from an experimental stem cell cancer treatment. The treatment itself worked perfectly in wiping out the cancer, but left him with a very sever case of host vs. graft disease.

After all the services and running around I spent about a week playing old Final Fantasy games and refusing to leave my apartment, wearing his t-shirts, and crying into my vodka (dealing with things has never been a strong suit of mine.)

We spent some time sort of estranged through my early 20s, but in the past year we’d gotten very close again and spent most every Monday for six months hanging out together and going for beers at our favorite microbrewery in town.

I also had some time to think about the blog here, as I started finding anime a taxing subject when I didn’t have other things to interject into it occasionally. I think in the process of posting more I lost sight of what my original intention was. There are a thousand anime blogs around that can all cover news, brand new series which are only available in fan-sub format, and the stuff all the fanboys crave. Personally, reading the anime news network’s posts, I only care about every one in forty stories, and my intention was to present anime as it fits into regular culture, as opposed to specifically covering anime culture, which is it’s own brightly-colored animal. So, starting immediately Oh Tetsuo! will be changing formats from an anime blog to a media blog with a heavy emphasis on anime. I’ll also be covering music, movies, gadgets, hamburgers, and M. Wards hair.

Happy Independence Day

As we feast on beer and meat and reflect upon our country's rich heritage, I wish you the very best, a fun evening, a DUI-free night, and some damn fine explosions in the sky.

Cheers, America.

Subs & Dubs: The Yankees and Red Sox of Unwashed Basement Dwellers.

I suppose the question of Subs versus Dubs in the world of anime isn't so much a long-time debate as a pissing contest for fanhood.

"What? You want those terribly inaccurate Dubbed pieces of crap?! You know they totally violate the integrity of the story, right?" Which, depending on the quality of the dub ranges from a slight exaggeration to blathering space-man talk.

But there is a reasonable argument to be made on behalf of those artistic nightmares, and of course I'd be please to make it. First, why Subs simply rule earth:

The theory is that dubs are often inaccurate or the western licensing companies take artistic liberties with the dialog and occasionally the story. Which, is entirely true. Many little chunks of Dialog are frequently bent slightly to help fit the animation or to simply smooth out some of the awkwardness of translation. Japanese tends to be very a literal language and Dubs are geared (of course) towards their respective English-speaking audience.

(Watch a very flattly fan-subbed Hentai film sometimes for a good laugh. If you've got some friends and want to make a drinking game out of it, do a shot any time anyone says "release" and you'll all be wasted by 22-minutes in)

There's also a world of things taken into account. What passes for normal behavior in one culture doesn't nessesarily do so in others. Some jokes would be totally lost on American audiences just as I'm sure dubbed episodes of Cheers would make for just as big of head-scratchers over there

A lot of the distaste stems from where Anime in the west had a much smaller fan base and the artistic librities were greater simply because small distributers were pushing to get a product out with as little money or time as they could. It led to a lot of pretty iffy material.

But, this is less an educational peice as it is an editorial, so enough of that. Subs, in most cases, are the truest form of the original content.

I do, always will, and always have prefered dubs for one very simple reason: I speak english.

Now, I know that seems like something someone says on a message board after getting teased, berated, or generally pwnzd after mentioning he likes dubs, but it's a valid reason. I'll be the first to admit that despite years of anime consumption and a semester of Japanese in college (that I had to withdrawl from due to... never going) my Japanese comprehension ends with "hello" "thank you" and "goodbye." Which makes it completely impossible to watch anything in japanese and acuratly gauge the voice acting.

With no understanding of the words themselves, let alone the inflection, dialect, or timing, you'd be hard pressed to understand the difference in acting talent between Marlin Brando and Pauly Shore, which is going to be the case with 90% of fans.

The subs versus dubs argument, more often than not, is really nothing more than the never-ending "I'm more indie than you" nonsense that has plauged mankind forever. Yes, from the first time one caveman asked another if he liked Animial Collective, and his friend replied "well yes, but only their early stuff" ...we've been doing this same song and dance.

Another good reason is purely an issue of watchability. Yes, I can take in a subtitled film from time to time and deticate my eyes soley to the screen, but really when I'm trying to plow through seven season of Ranma 1/2, trust me, you get the idea regardless of language it's in. Cold Water. Hot Water. Whacky Shit Happens.

Even as I write this I have Ghost In the Shell: Stand Alone Complex playing on my secondary monitor and trust me, there is nothing going on in the untranslated version that's going to deeply impact my viewing experience and reading subtitles doesn't make your soul fundimentally more pure. So the next time some poor kid is over at box-torrents asking where he can find this one dubbed, un-do your Caps Lock, take a deep breath, open your blinds and take a look at the sun outside, grab another soda and calm down.

There really are more important things to worry about.

Greetings. (Are You There God? It’s Me, Gigantor)

Welcome to Oh Tetsuo. A pragmatic look into the beautiful and often-times frustrating world of Anime. A branch of film that’s brought us the feverish intensity of Akira, the wonder of Serial Experiments: Lain, and the stabbing abdominal pain that is Big Wars. A waning trend in America that’s had dozens of ebbs and flows over the past thirty years, and rightfully so.

Like any genre of film, as a general rule, you’re looking at a twelve-parts-crap to one-part-genius margin ratio. For every Dark Knight, there’s more than a few Daredevils.

Oh Tetsuo is here for the fans and social-users alike, presented to be an editorial outlook in plain, understandable English without constant use of insider slang or attempts at educational nonsense. This is for a few reasons; first of all as a part-time music critic, I only know how to be a jerk, and, second, there have been lots of excellent online resources for learning all you need to know about the rich world of Japanese animation. Like all avenues of nerd-dome, fan resources are plentiful, I’m just here to spout off my thoughts on a genre I love to readers with a base understanding of the art-form, or at least for insomniacs that like to read.

To establish the map, so to speak, I figure I’ll give a quick overview on my thoughts. Consider it an FAQ for my particular brand of douche-baggery.

1a.) I really love anime.
1b.) Most anime is genuinely awful.

Important thing to understand. Anime often suffers two true stereotypes. It often has non-liner storylines and addresses issues of a more philosophical nature through metaphor and ambiguity, and, just as often, resembles a Michael Bays wet dream with depth replaced by large-breasted 16 year-old bounty hunters that blow things up and drive cool cars.

…also there are robots. Whoooole lotta fuckin’ of robots.

2) Not all popcorn anime is inherently bad, just as not all art-school anime is inherently good.

3) No matter how objective I attempt to be, I’ve always got a soft-spot for a lot of the sitcom stuff I got onto when I was younger (Ranma ½, Tenchi Muyo, The Slayers, etc)

4.) Combination of 3D CG and traditional 2D was maybe the most dreadful directorial choice in the history of the form.

5.) Not everything Hayao Miyazaki has done is flawless (though, a lot of it is pretty close)

The rest of the bridges we’ll cross when we come to.
Cheers,
- Aj