Slow Ballad Grudge Match!

Which syrupy endsong from a CGI showcase flick can caterwaul its heroine's name with the most style?

In the right corner:
Kaena: The Prophecy. Heroine: Kaena. Notable cast members: Michael McShane and Greg Proops in a Whose Line double feature, Dwight Schultz, John DiMaggio.

In the left corner:
The Golden Compass. Heroine: Lyra. Notable cast members: Count Dooku, a lot of other people who should've known better.

A few handicaps to note:

Kaena has a plan. "Lyra" has no clue: where are our lives / if there is no dream? "Kaena" has the obvious answer: if you should fall in the deep / to call the dreams / the vision in your sleep. In retrospect, it is easy to figure out.

On the other hand, Lyra is less likely to trip in the dark. Even although the night is falling on "Kaena", the sun is in sight. This sounds pretty good until you realize "Lyra" has the numerical advantage: and the stars look down upon her / this darkness settles on her. Remember, a sun is just one star.

Kaena's soul is the great attractor. "Kaena": echoes of the past / are flying to your soul, which is a distraction she doesn't need in the middle of a title bout. "Lyra"? Her soul walks besides her. Moving target, forces the enemy to split their attention. A tactical advantage.

Fuggit, just bring a spade. "Kaena": the truth is in her head. "Lyra": the truth lies deep inside her. At least Kaena knows exactly where it is.

The Showdown:
"Kaena" vs. "Lyra". You be the judge!

Special last-minute contender added--"The Dream WIthin" from Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. It hits all the right notes (stars, dreams, mysterious internal guidance, light, trust, love) but not once croons the name of Dr. Aki Ross, a critical failing.

My money's on "Kaena" because, let's face it, as bad as it is, it has more than one note. Several, in fact.

Damn, that Kate Bush song is really shitty.

I have to get a copy of this...

At last! A first peek at some rough character designs for the X-Men OEL shoujo manga. And everybody's sixteen! Except Magneto, he's gotta be a hard twenty. Imagine how awesome it'll be when they're all dating and angsty and dating and angsty and dating and crying and talking about their feelings and stuffs and Professor X (because no shoujo is complete without a vaguely icky pupil-teacher romance) will be all like, "Ben or Noel, Jean. Ben... or Noel?!" and then she'll cry sparkles 'cause she loves them both but in the end she chooses Phoenix and... yeah.

Teenaged girls hate subtlety

If I'm very good in this life, hopefully I will be reborn in the next as the person who has to write copy for manga like All Nippon Airline:

ANAL – All Nippon Air Lines – is a unique airline company. All of its employees are beautiful gay men. On top of that, relationships between employees, or even between passengers and employees, are highly encouraged! This is of course the premise for many hilarious situations and strange adventures both for them and for their passengers.

Now that's classic. Admittedly, the art of yaoi manga copy is not an easy craft to learn. For example, if it were up to me, I would describe Author's Pet like so:

Poor, poor Yuta. He's a high school student who's about to be used for the hot erotic gratification of a chickenhawk desk jockey with a bum arm! Sexual abuse let's go-go funny!!

Whereas the actual description reads like this:

High school student Yuta bumps into a man outside the train station, injuring him. The man's name is Tsubaki Nishijima, occupation novelist. In exchange for crippling his arm, Tsubaki demands Yuta work like a slave every day! Today's job is to take exact dictation of Tsubaki's words. Whaaat? What's with this perverted depiction of "Come”...!!! Isn't this sexual harassment?

See? There's a lot of nuance that goes into that work.

Welcome to my dark pit of not really that darkness

Costume design by Jessica Rabbit and the Ice Capades.

Because I owe certain people a post, here it is: Wendy Pini's Masque of the Red Death, the first original series (as conceived by Edgar Allen Poe) from Go! Comi. It's a daring "walk on the dark side" kinda like Hot Topic is a walk on the cutting edge of alterna-cool, but hey, it's free to read when you register at the Go! Comi site. Editor Audry Taylor describes it as "what all fans of homoerotic fantasy and horror dream of: a long and involving story line with a cast to die for ... characters who make love, pursue immortality, and suffer from the highest peaks to the lowest depths of human emotion."


"I can see the outline of your fibula and it is totally turning me on.
Also, I've sculpted my own hairdo out of marshmallow fluff."

I describe it as a slow-moving story about boring pro-ana assholes making glassy eyes at each other. There's been none of the promised love-making as of yet, but I imagine it will look pretty much like this when it comes.

As you may have noticed by now, the lead characters are styled, unsuccessfully, in what might be described as a pseudo-Peter Chung, pant-averse future look. People, if you want to draw emaciated yaoi reeds, don't do it halfway! Go all out and invest it with flair, or else your fellas just look repulsively disproportional. Despite Pini's professed interest in manga, her art here is much stronger--and less glaringly Photoshoppy--when it more closely resembles an exaggerated American animation style; no doubt there was a lot of effort put into this, but right now it's not gelling well.

As for the dialogue, well, it exists and it conveys information. So, uh, kudos on that accomplishment--

Bunchh [sic]: A woman's perfect breast... Royess' slinky grace... Steffan's bone structure... you're saying these miracles are just illusions fashioned by whims of the mind?!
Prosper: There's no miracle involved. Royess slinks in black because she wills it. Steffan looks as he does because he wills it.

--wait a minute, dude! This shit is just an infomercial for The Secret!


"I am devoid of all vital organs and muscle mass because I will it.
And now, I will you... to purchase my DVD for $29.95!"

That Asian dude better not be the evil character

So yeah, you could watch the Speed Racer movie. Or you could skip paying $11 to see Emile Hirsch act constipated-intense and just play any version of WipeOut instead, because that series kicks ass. Your choice.

I iz too a cosplayer cuz I has cat eers on

This book is as every bit as depressing as the cover image.

So photographer Elena Dorfman, as you may already know, took a series of photos of "cosplayers"--her words, not mine, as you'll see later--which has been released in the book Fandomania. The blurb goes like so:

"The theater of cosplay has no boundaries, is unpredictable, open-ended. It includes both the fantastic and the mundane, the sexually aberrant and innocent, female characters who become samurai warriors and brainy scientists, and male characters who magically change their sex." Explorations of identity through portraiture are at the forefront of Dorfman's work, with the blurred lines between fantasy and reality a continuing theme.

Not to hate, but after flipping through the book it becomes clear that Dorfman's bold statement is undermined by the fact that half the people in the book look like they were picked up at the cosplay equivalent of the Bowery Mission. Whatever Dorfman's intent, these dispiriting photos convey only the message that the theater of cosplay is one of cruelty, filled with sad, sad, predominately white people living a broken-down lie. I mean, who the fuck is this supposed to be? I feel like I should at least recognize this as a character but all I feel is a pervading sense of sadness and pity. You can do it! Defeat the emo that rages inside and reclaim your flip-flops! Go, girl, go!

What's this? Oh, it's just a trap. This isn't even cosplay either, it's just how people dressed at my high school. And that sloppy hanging thread just bugs.

There are costumes in the book that are much better, but for photos featuring some of the the saddest-looking cosplayers and so-called "cosplayers" around, Fandomania is a safe bet. Then again, you can find these exact same people loitering in front of the elevators at your local convention, shrill-voiced with "GLOMP ME!" signs and boxes of Pocky. It's like Hot Cosplay Mess...

...with a foam cover. There's no reason why it should be foam, nor does its foamy quality add anything whatsoever to the finished work except for a vague sensation of squishiness, but that's how awesome and well-thought-out this project is.