 Messages |
Topics |
Attachments
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
Messages - dooky
16
« on: November 16, 2004, 07:15:35 am »
It's OK. The option seems unpopular enough I won't bother. It was just a suggestion if anyone didn't like the YaBB... but I'm not getting that notion. ;)
Well, I'm quite a fan of phpBB myself- It's just so customisable, and you can conceivably base an entire site around it (hence maintaining a unified login system). The decision's yours, of course, but I thought I'd speak up in favour of my preferred system. dooky
17
« on: October 20, 2004, 11:09:17 am »
Reviving this thread... because, towards the end of last year, I posted this: Anybody here ever tried this? It seems that next summer, I'll finally get to go to a con, and I'm in a cosplayin' mood. And the character I want to cosplay as is...
(pause for effect)
(realises that everyone has already guessed)
Yeah, Fatora. Not Makoto dressed as Fatora, but actually Fatora (there is a subtle difference ^_^) I have 9-10 months to make a costume, which might seem like a long time... but you see, I don't have that much sewing experience. My qualifications in the subject amount to basic plushie engineering and making some Azumanga daddy hats to promote our anime club. I've never sewn actual clothes before, so this is going to be one hell of a challenge ^_^
Well, said convention has been and gone. And, well... That's me, that is.Well, it's not the best picture, but for a first cosplay attempt I think it went quite well. The strange thing was how I bumped into two other Fatoras there (albeit in different outfits). I really wouldn't have thought she was such a popular choice for cosplaying. My next attempt? Well, I'm not sure when my next con will be, but I have been invited to go to AX in the the US at some point in the future, provided I can afford the plane fare. If I do go, I am apparently obliged to make this costume.Wish me luck... dooky
18
« on: October 20, 2004, 07:50:46 am »
For me, it has to be dub Jinnai. Possibly one of the greatest performances in an anime dub. As for the laugh though... it's hard to tell the difference. The English and Japanese laughs are pretty similar. What makes the English performance stand out is the regular lines. When I eventually watched the Japanese version, I was amazed my how deep and menacing the original voice was. The general concensus is that the El-Hazard dub actually adds to the overall quality of the show, which is somewhat rare in today's market. As a bit of a dub devotee, I'd have to disagree. El-Hazard still stands out as one of the best dubs ever, but I'd hardly say that todays dubs are of substandard quality. Take ISM's Azumanga Daioh dub... a pretty much spot-on transition with appropriately subtle and/or insane performances. The Read or Die TV dub goes down the El-Hazard route of tweaking lines here and there to make the whole thing funnier (Anita's line in the dub when receiving a signed book from Nenene, "I wonder how much I'll get for this on eBay", seemed altogether ruder than the flat Japanese "Maybe I can sell this"). The overall quality of dubs has improved dramatically since the mid-nineties, even if truly stellar dubs like El-Hazard will always be few and far between. The unfortunate exception is Shayla's voice actress. You see, I'd completely disagree there... but again, I saw the dub first. For me, Shayla's voice works perfectly in English, although I did notice somethimng interesting when I first watched the Japanese version. You know the scene in Episode 5, where Shayla and Nanami approach Makoto, only for him to say "Ifurita"? In the English version, Shayla runs away screaming, but in the Japanese, she's actually crying. Which is something I couldn't imagine from her English voice, who seems altogether harder. When I first heard her ask about "that Nah-naa-me chick" in her horrible Southern drawl I wanted to jab my bokken in my ear. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Shayla's Japanese voice have some sort of strange, non-standard accent? I might be remembering wrong... I'm quite bad at noticing Japanese accents, but a friend of mine pointed it out... the only thing is, I can't remember if it was Shayla or Afura. There are only a few voices in the dub which have ever given me problems, and they are Schtalubaugh, Nahato/Parnasse, Ifurita and Arjah. Schtalubaugh is generally very good, but there are a few parts where he completely overdoes it (listen to that "long shrouded in ancient legend" line from Episode 1 and tell me it doesn't sound like an advert for a theme park or something). I list Nahato and Parnasse together since they clearly have the same voce: Nahato just sounded odd at times, nothing I can quite put my finger on, perhaps it was the accent. For such a quiet, understate character the voice didn't work. Parnasse's performance was much more energetic and the voice worked a lot better... but again, started to sound weird when he quietened down. Iffy's voice, conversely, worked fine for the quiet scenes, or even her stern, emotioness ones, but started to crack when she got louder (I'm thinking the start to Episode 6) and she was suddenly in danger of turning into Washu. The only truly disappointing voice was Arjah's. Admittedly the character was a diasppointement too, so maybe it fits anyway. He can't have been helped by the lacklustre direction, but the guy always sounded bored, even when he was ranting. And his evil laugh was shite. I feel a bit bad what with all this negativity (particularly when I'm deconstructing otherwise excellent performances in minute detail) so let's emind ourselves of some of the high points of the dub. Jinnai, Fujisawa and Alielle are basically flawless. Almost as great are the actors portraying Makoto, Nanami, Fatora and Miz. In terms of guest characters, Galus and Dall both have wonderful voices (Dall's dub voice represents one of the highlights of Alternative World for me. That, and Gilda just being gorgeous... ahem)... El-Hazard has earned a place in anime history as the greatest dub of its day. That said, I'm keen to see other dubs learning from its example, and hopefully exceeding its achievements. dooky (not dead, just waiting for something worthwhile to say)
19
« on: August 09, 2004, 06:26:17 am »
Did you know that Utena was based on an unused idea for a Sailor Moon movie? The SuperS movie was originally going to be a slightly trippy love story between Uranus and Neptune, but one of the writers quit and Ikuhara decided it would be rude to use the story in his absence. Which is a shame, I'd have loved to see a movie about Uranus and Neptune. Still, it did mean that we got Utena a few years later.
dooky, making diagrams to aid his understanding of MariMite.
20
« on: August 06, 2004, 09:35:47 am »
Plus there's the minor fact that I'm a conservative religious guy and Utena's got... stuff. *chuckles* And El-Hazard hasn't? ^_~
21
« on: July 12, 2004, 08:27:32 am »
Because I have a love of pointless trivia, I thought I might tax you all with the following question:
What is the connection between El-Hazard and Sonic Adventure 2?
Answers on a postcard... ^_~
dooky
22
« on: June 28, 2004, 09:59:48 am »
Now that I think about it, the American version I remember was probablt "The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog". My overriding memory of that series is that Eggman/Robotnik had a pointy head. It was an interesting little series, but bore virtually no relation to the games other than the central characters.
In my opinion the transition to 3D has been problematic, but Heroes probably represents the best attempt to replicate the original style of play. I would still rate SA2B higher overall, since I preferred the idea of dedicated levels for specific characters: It meant that the Sonic/Shadow levels could be ridiculously fast, without having to make adaptations for the other characters. I still maintain that the difficulty level on the treasure hunting stages was set too high compared to everything else, but other than that it was an excellent game (although admittedly not what I expected from a Sonic game, having come straight from the Megadrive).
As for characters... well, I never really liked Sonic himself. He always seemed like a bit of a smartarse. Knuckles, I had a bit more time for... despite the fact that he was almost unbeliveably stupid, I kind of liked the guy.
I suppose the problem is that in this day and age, you have to give your game characters personalities. So whereas previously, Sonic and co were only very loosely defined as characters, these rather narrow definitions had to be filled out for the newer games, and weren't going to be to everyone's liking. But characterisation was never a problem for me- I became tolerant of Sonic's irritating attiude a long time ago ^_^
Likewise, I liked the idea of Sonic and co living amongst humans more than I disliked it: after all, Eggman was always human, so I never gave it much thought...
dooky
23
« on: June 28, 2004, 07:32:41 am »
(end flashback to Mission Street)
I was a big fan of the Sonic games in my teenage years, and I've recently become reacquainted with the series via the Gamecube. Since I've noticed that there are one or two Sonic otaku here (I pick up on these things, you know ^_~) I was wondering... what does everyone think about Sonic's transtition to the 3D format?
I started out with SA2B, which I found incredibly difficult (still stuck on the final level of the Dark story). I've just acquired SADX and Heroes too, both of which seem slightly easier. I must say that the quasi-RPG format of SADX stumped me to begin with... and the fact that some of the characters had such short games was quite offputting. I'm the sort of person who doesn't like to complete a game too soon after buying it. On the other hand, the story parts of the game are spectacular... I really didn't expect to find a Sonic game based around an ancient mass genocide...
By comnparison, Heroes seems a bit shallow. Everything about it is extremely slick, and I'll probably enjoy it more as it gets harder, but it doesn't have the story of SADX or the variety of SA2B (while Rouge's later stages in that game had me swearing like a footballer, I feel a certain nostalgia for them now). The lack of a Japanese dialogue option is also frustrating... while I'm usually pro-dub, there is a total of two decent English voices amongst the entire Sonic cast.
I'm also slightly startled by the array of new characters that have arrived since my Megadrive days. I do vaguely remember reading about the Chaotix guys appearing in some 32X job, back in the days when Sega seemed to be releasing a new console every six months, and I think Amy was on the Mega CD, but the rest are new ones on me. Particularly Big the Cat, whose very existence seems to fill me with a strange sense of injustice.
Oh and one question- not really connected to the games, but one that I've been unable to find an answer to... What does SatAM stand for? (The only animated Sonic I've ever seen is that bizarre American version and a single episode of Sonic X, which I enjoyed quite a lot).
One more thing... one day, very soon... I will write a plausible Rouge/Tikal yuri fic ^_~
dooky
24
« on: June 18, 2004, 08:25:44 am »
By the way, "UFO Princess Valkyrie"? Those are three words I normally don't associate with each other. Are they mostly just a catchy title or do they actually relate to the story somehow? I suspect it's the same as "Kiddy Grade"... a collection of arbitrary words that sound good together. And I too am curious about this catgirl series of which you speak... dooky
25
« on: June 08, 2004, 06:18:42 am »
That person has left me two nice reviews. They've also e-mailed me directly, twice, politely begging me to review their serial. All of which heightens my suspicion that he isn't actually reading our fics... he just reads the synopses then sends reviews accompanied by requests to read his story. The fact that he 1- sent me three reviews in quick succession, 2- made no mention of the fact that one of the stories had been lying unfinished for two years and 3- failed to comment that SOTTC also has yuri coming out of the walls at many points just makes it seem like he never read them. Besides, doesn't the idea of an ardent and proud homophobe reading every story by a man who specialises in yuri seem a little far fetched? Anyway, if you think getting El-Hazard reviews are weird, try writing a Dragon Ball Z fanfic. You'll get ALL the freaks comin outta the woodwork then. That's one of the reasons I've been putting off writing my first Sailor Moon fanfic. It's a great series, there's more yuri than you can shake a henshin stick at... but the fandom is home to a significant number of utter wankers. These range from DBZ-esque adolescent leet-users crying "WAA! 5ERENA & Darrr1EN 4EVA!!!!1!!" to frighteningly academic spelling-Nazis who proclaim that as a result of their research, everyone should start spelling "Amazoness" as "Amazones". I had a slight taste of this during my foray into Cardcaptor Sakura fanfiction, when people kept emailing me to demand I put the pairing in the synopsis... dooky EDIT: Cool, it says I'm a Demon Goddess now! ^_^
26
« on: June 07, 2004, 06:15:25 am »
This is sort of EH related, but I thought I'd stick it here anyway. The question is to the fanfic writers: what's the oddest review you've ever had, and how do you deal with such oddities? While I've never been flamed outright, a fanfic review site once accused me of not being able to spell (they didn't realise I was using British English). I seem to attract nutters rather than flamers, such as the person who claimed to be Alielle's best friend. The latest one has me scratching my head though... This story is good, considering the fact that it managed to entertain a die-hard
hater of homosexuals like me... This was for The Adventures of Alielle and Fatora. The same review was left for my Cardcaptor Sakura fanfic. The dilemma comes from the fact that the reviewer has emailed me personally and asked me to review his own El-Hazard story. Going over to fanfiction.net, I find that in his bio he describes himself as a "small, wiry faggot-basher supreme." Now, I'm not in the business of flaming, but part of me is just itching to respond in some form. Of course, he hasn't insulted me directly (although for all he knows I could be gay), so I'm sort of at a loss. One thing is quite certain- I'm not massively keen on reading his story now... -_- dooky
27
« on: June 07, 2004, 05:55:04 am »
So Dooky, how far did you get? Have you finished the series yet? No, still a long way off ^_^ I never seem to have that much time to watch anime, plus I've also got recently purchased volumes of Sailor Moon Azumanga and Angel Tales (stupid, but cute and comes with tiny plushies) to watch. I'm generally impressed with BA so far, although it doesn't quite work for me in the same way El-Hazard did. Still early days though. dooky
28
« on: June 01, 2004, 09:01:44 am »
That's one of the reasons why Qawoor is pretty much the ultimate fantasy girl. She has no real sense of personal pride, and if she has any personal desires, they ALWAYS take second place to everyone else's. You can use her and throw her away, and she won't really be unhappy as long as you're happy. Her happiness is entirely dependent on your happiness. Interesting hair, though. dooky
29
« on: June 01, 2004, 05:25:37 am »
Parnasse is Alielle's younger brother in Alternative World.
On which subject... Mr What, will we be seeing that Parnasse story anytime soon? ^_~
dooky
30
« on: June 01, 2004, 05:20:23 am »
I got 70%, which I suppose isn't too bad considering I haven't seen Wanderers, and most of the questions were about it...
dooky
|
Show Posts