anomalous

@alexcat showing off Microsoft Home stuff yesterday just reminded me of this classic mod by Walkman: an original funk track produced 100% out of samples from Microsoft Home Musical Instruments. And it works! Really well!

Original mod download: https://www.exotica.org.uk/mediawiki/index.php?title=Special%3AModland&md=search&mod=fastfunk&aut=Walkman&for=&col=&siz=&ins=&si=1

Oh right, I forgot he did a second one too! Here's his other Microsoft Musical Instruments funk track: JUNK FUNK, which is just as fun. Please listen, please enjoy.

Original mod download: https://www.exotica.org.uk/mediawiki/index.php?title=Special%3AModland&md=search&mod=junkfunk&aut=Walkman&for=&col=&siz=&ins=&si=1

I forgot this place existed oopsie!

Here's Keiki and Chimata :]

i wanna push back on this and say that precure is a terrible example, of course it is a toy driven franchise but it's a well respected home for incredible animators and one of toei's flagship series. if you want to watch some of the most reliably incredible tv animation on the planet, precure is one of the best possible places you could look.

the east vs west comparison is a false one, at most it is due to anime's production history which did lead to a higher percentage of more interesting and much better looking animated productions, but even that was mostly driven by frankly insane levels of worker abuse. and in the modern day, with the industry cut to the bone, production skyrocketing and pay bottomed out, i think if you look at the landscape of bottom of the battle garbage narou adaptations that look like shit and only exist to re-enforce its target audiences most cynical desires, we can confidently say that japan can pump out slop with the rest of us.

there is nothing more profound or noble about the kind of capitalism present in japan that imbues the cartoons with an inherent quality that rises above western art, there is a production method driven by culture of overwork spearheaded by Tezuka in the 60s, which gave anime a distinctive style as compared to the way american cartoons developed. With the utter crisis the anime industry finds itself in, as it blows up to never before seen global profits yet can't find the staff to animate its shows as planning collapses in on itself, these tensions are being pushed beyond breaking point.

so yeah, i guess i just don't really agree with the premise. charitably i will say the thing you are percieving as more soul is the post-tezuka production methods of anime, the limited animation style that focuses on getting the most out of the poses and cuts you have, and the way that developed over the years. but that isn't an inherent orientalist quality of japanese animation's soul that western animation can never capture, it's a production context.

Consider: Akira Toriyama's death at the age of 68 meant he lived beyond the average for his cohort of mangaka

also like, Avatar The Last Airbender? Adventure Time? Steven Universe? Bluey? Batman: The Animated Series? these are all beloved series and many have stood the test of time.

compare that to the softcore fetish pornography that gets served up as PG-13 material in the shovel-animes that come out, which gets forgotten the second a new one gets shat out so the studio can keep their lights on. or the ones that exist purely as an advertisement for a manga series, often never resolving core plot threads so you're tempted to buy the manga?

it's such a bizarre flex to push the concept of japanese anime somehow being more "pure" and "thoughtful" than western shows. I say all that as a long-time anime fan.

from 2018