Kuchikamizake and Your Name Anime
Important Notice: I am not endorsing alcohol nor its impacts in underage drinking even sake in anime.
Today is a post concerning the culture represented in an anime movie going by the title of Your Name. Your Name follows Mitsuha Miyamizu and Taki Tachibana who are connected to one another in a strange fashion. The only way that I can discuss the connection is the link between them is sometimes switching bodies. The genres are classified as drama and supernatural types of anime. We see the connection of someone's life in the emotional fixes or drama aspect and the supernatural twist of somehow switching bodies. There is a scene that mentions Kuchikamizake or a rice-based sake in the anime movie. I am going to explain some of the science of sake and cultural background of it in anime. Sake is a drink that is an alcoholic beverage that is highly popular in Japanese culture and anime. Sake is often seen in the drinking of comrades or high social situations in anime where the drinking has significance in the plots. Kuchikamizake is a type of sake where rice is fermented and reveals a sweat flavor than of traditional strong tasting alcohol. Rice is a difficult process in where the starch in the chemical structure involves yeast breaking down the sugar content. Just so you know, starches are considered complex carbohydrates (carbs) where yeast cannot break it down as easily like glucose (simple carbs). To combat this issue over starches breaking down, you need a mold going by the name of Aspergillus Oryzae. Koji is another name for the mold and this creates a chemical reaction that turns the starch molecules into sugar. Historically, before the discovery of the mold, there were people actually chewing on bits rice to break the starch content. The human salvia contains bacteria that turns rice into sugar and makes digestion of starches easier. Important fact, alcohol contains aseptic properties, and back in the day, any trace of human salvia was instantly killed in the brewing process.
Kuchikamizake is commonly made and found at sites of shrines in Japan. I strongly suggest that if anime science peaks your interest, then Chris Meharg's articles would explain your some of your interests in anime.
http://www.animescience101.com/kuchikamizake/
New Thresholds in Anime
Anime is made in many ways through its evolution. However, have you ever heard of someone hacking their way into anime? Hacking into anime is meant to reenergize the industry and possibly find a new way in making anime. There is an event that matches this description which the 0th Anime Hackathon delivers on. The hackathon is set to be on April 30th, 2019 and challenges engineers to set new ways of anime production. Hosting is done by TWIN ENGINE Inc. production company and Pancake creative studio partnering up for the hackathon. Participates of the challenge will have access to many resources for creating a short animation. They will use game designing programs, augmented reality, and virtual reality techniques for different animated content. The contest is to see the innovation that comes from individuality of minds willing to create something totally new. A jury is expected to be shown at the event including Ryo-timo, Junichi Yamamoto, and Yuuki Sakoda. Ryo-timo is known as an anime director and a character designer whose work involves Birdy the Mighty: Decode and Yozakura Quartet.
Junichi Yamamoto is a person who works as an animator and as well as a director in shows like his contribution in Pop Teams Eric segments and Team Drive. Yuuki Sakoda is the front liner of the hackathon whose has connections with both TWIN ENGINE and Pancake. 0th Anime Hackathon is happening at Tokyo's Future Tech Hub with registration at 2,000 yen which is about 18 dollars. Fun fact, there was an expansion of 20 to 30 entries for the event due to the immense popularity. I challenge those who think that they can create a new anime style in the near future even without the hackathon. For more information, go to Crunchyroll News article below and click the hyperlink to the 0th Anime Hackathon website.
https://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2019/04/19-1/new-event-challenges-engineers-to-hack-their-way-to-anime
FMA Inspiring A New Age
Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood explores the Elric brothers all over again in an adaptation closer to the manga. In the spring of 2009, the new FMA was a highly anticipated anime that connected the old fans with the new fanbase for a fresh ascetic of a greatly renounced show. Apparently, there so much of a following behind FMA that Funimation went in a different direction of streaming. It marked one of the first major series to be simulcasted in the anime community at the time. The significance of simulcast is essential because it paves the way for other shows to be broadcasted at the same time as in Japan. A new period in anime indirectly came from the idea of simulcast of transforming the industry in fans getting access on the same day on the particular episode. Simulcast influenced a new generation of anime which was the new age of the internet. The internet became a popular medium for the anime industry for it allowed easier access to anime outside from cable like the Funimation channel. Crunchyroll experimented with the idea of how anime could be accessed on an app or a website. Critics of Crunchyroll doubted the success of the idea and underestimated how much potential value could be made from anime on the internet. The reboot of FMA made Funimation stand out in the anime industry through a popular simulcast and gave it more backing behind the impact of same day broadcast. Brotherhood also stroked a cord in success by its opening episode being simulcasted as the first major series. According to SyFy Wire, Funimation had major success with not only FMA but One Piece as well in simulcasts. Read more of the article from Christopher Inoa on Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood's impact on the site below. Important note, FMA Brotherhood is not available on Funimation anymore but instead Netflix and Hulu.
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/how-fullmetal-alchemist-brotherhood-changed-anime-and-streaming-forever
Bat Crazy For Anime
Important Notice: [SPOILERS] The post today could contain minimal spoilers of the vampire genre anime.
Today is about a blog that honors a national holiday of Bat Appreciation Day. Bats are animals overcoming blindness via echo location and lurk in the dark like vampires. Yes, bats have a small relation to vampires but in the scheme of things it is a blog. In celebration of this holiday, the post is concerning popular vampire anime shows. A vampire cult classic is the Hellsing series where we have a vampire hunter and his conquests in hunting these foul creatures. Seraph of the End is a post apocalyptic world where vampires try to dominate the remaining humans. Vampire Knight takes place in the school genre and the vampires go to night school instead of day school. Blood Lad follows a vampire named Staz who wants to be otaku and live in the Japanese lifestyle. Rosario Vampire explores an all monster high school and one estranged human who has to be protected. Trinity Blood is an interesting anime where the human government, the Vatican, and the “New Human Empire” are in a cold war. Strike the Blood portrays Kojou Akatsuki who is in the Demon District and literally holds the power to change the balance of the monster society. On one last note, here is a quote from Hellsing series “To become a monster like me, is to admit you were too weak to remain a human.” – Alucar. I hope that vampires do not drink your blood in the near future and count on more posts tomorrow.
Censorship In Dubbing Community
Anime gets watched in all kinds of languages and one that is the most present is in the United States community. Dubbing rights sometimes include changing the approach of the anime or the content seen in shows. The content that is changed could result in a very unliked word of censorship. Censorship is the action of filtering out content that is unwanted or editing an anime to meet an audience's expectations. Today, I am taking reference from CBR on 20 times of anime getting censored. In Pokemon, there are numerous scenes that get censored but pretending that rice balls are jelly donuts is really icing on the cake. Yu-GI-Oh is known for trying to tame the violent appeal of the anime but fake finger pistols are really absurd in the show. A series that looked totally different from Japan's version is Ghost Stories where the actors are mad libbing some of the scenes in the anime series. Shaman King attracts competing for the title of the anime and has black blood and blocked out religious objects. Astro Boy is a cult classic, yet Uran is considered to be Astro Girl in the series which is false information. Lastly, a series that is notoriously known for its fair share of censorship is One Piece. Sanji is shown in the dubbed anime of having a red sucker in his mouth which looks so out of place. Yes, I know most of the shows mentioned have some relation to the 4Kids streaming block and how they handled anime dubbing rights. The shows shown on this blog are just some of the examples that are presented from CBR's showcase of dubbing censorship.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0KjuoB6mL0
Cells at Work in Humans
Cells at Work is an animation that explores the human body and how it functions. It teaches us that if something that comes in the body might be harmful or it might be beneficial. Also, it explains how our body reacts in certain situations. For example, if you get germs in your body; your immune system actually tries to terminate those germs as fast as possible. Apparently, there is a special collaboration between Tokyo Hands and Village and Vanguard over this series on April 27 to May 9, 2019. According to Crunchyroll News, the employees of both stores will be dressed up as the characters from the animation series. Both stores will show case things like unique product lines and artwork from the anime. I suggest that if you are new to the series of Cells at Work! try to go on YouTube for possible reaction video. More specifically, go to a doctor video reacting to the title of Cells at Work l. He actually explains the animation and how everything in science works within the human body from a doctor's perspective. Having the doctors perspective, feels very reinsuring to what I'm watching and gives me outside knowledge that I did not have the before. I hope that today's post is informational but also gives a hint into what Cells at Work actually does in the anime. Check out this one of a kind collaboration for yourself below.
https://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2019/04/15-1/cells-at-work-anime-gets-busy-with-double-retail-store-collaboration
ReynoCon's Review
The first ever ReynoCon was held yesterday, April 13, at J. Sargent Reynolds Community College (JSRCC) Downtown Campus. JSRCC can give itself a round of applause for a successful anime convention. Reynolds can also be credited with the of title “First Richmond College to Host an Anime Convention.” Even though, the convention started to look bleak when it rained; it eventually stopped, and the convention resumed better. What surprised me the most concerning of our first convention, was reaching 100 people in total attendance. Unfortunately, the event was planned on the same day as Richmond race weekend and Ukrop's Monument Ave. 10k. We had a poential opportunity for more people to visit without the other events and rain spoiling the morning. The event had a Smash tournament, karaoke, cosplay contest, anime trivia, and a very successful raffle section. I was a supervisor of the panel section and was a judge for the cosplay contest. My favorite aspect of ReynoCon was the Ray Cafe where we had volunteers as maids and butlers serving different guests. According to some guests, they want to come back next year for the various activities to do for passing the time. The biggest prize from the raffles was a gift card to 2nd & Charles of $50. 2nd & Charles is a store where comics, manga, video and tabletop games, books, and popular merchandise are sold. Let's make ReynoCon an annual event and keep it on track for future success together.
Anime Genres Explained
Today, I am writing an entry based on a panel that I am doing tomorrow at ReynoCon. The panel explores Anime Genres which are the major one as well the sub-genres. Action explores fighting sequences where it drives the plot and involves lots of battles among characters like Astro Boy. A sense of adventure involves characters traveling from place to place usually with traveling companions (InuYasha is one of those anime with traveling companions). Gintama is a comedy where hilarious situations occur for the ultimate goal of making you laugh. Nobody's Boy Remi tries to connects with the viewers through the characters’ experiences of Remi living a life worthy of the drama genre. Tales of Little Women is a historical anime where the events of the Civil War are present and where a coming of age story occurs in the anime. Magic Knight Rayearth is an isekai or other world anime of three women being transported in an unlikely time of heroism as knights. In recent years, mecha has become a popular genre of humans piloting robotic suits usually for fighting especially in the Gundam series. Psychological is one of the most interesting genres of anime in my opinion and Pyscho Pass makes you question society in whether or not a government is just. Splice of Life is where life is just chill and makes you feel Free! Space Pirate Captain Harlock starts off with Captain Harlock catching the attention of his government in the age of space. Space is where an anime universe that includes the cosmic reality and is highly accompanied by mecha and Sci-Fi genres. I hope these genres were able to strike a chord in anime fans and even other genre related industries. The source that helped me a lot with this research was from Reelrundown.
https://reelrundown.com/animation/Anime-Genre-List
Can Anime Cause Black Holes?
Recently, a space phenomenon had the internet roaring over the concern of a single photo. One photo reveals an important statement concerning the mystery of space of an image of a black hole. A black hole is a cosmic body where a star collapses on itself and creates a very strong field of gravity. It pulls all kinds of the matter even other suns in the center of the massive mass of its entire cosmic's being. In fact, black holes would not even be discovered without thanks to technology finding suns literally getting torn apart or split into many. Today's post is about fictional causes of a black hole depicted in anime. The six shows that are mentioned by Kara Dennison would be in random order to avoid spoilers. The shows mentioned in the opinioned piece over blackholes are Fairy Tail, My Hero Academia, Aim for the Top! Gunbuster, Gurren Lagann, One Piece, and The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. One cause is that the black hole is a person's eye looking beneath them to observe microscopic specs of us humans. A black hole is caused by gravity, so a character's ability to use infinite gravity might actually be a cause. Quite possibly, a character whose power is darkness could create gravity of great pulling power. A weapon of mass destruction could be utilized to create blackhole destroying effects on a planet somewhere. How about, an “interplanetary firepower” creating a swirling motion that breaks the cosmos. Lastly, a character that uses a power that is called Black Hole which is surely capable of creating the first black hole picture. I hope I described the random shows of blackhole causing events in anime. Give props to Kara Dennison from Crunchyroll News for her article on black holes created in anime. Kara explains more on her beliefs about gravity warping situational incidents and it has minor spoilers in its content.
https://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-feature/2019/04/11/6-anime-theories-for-what-the-black-hole-photo-actually-is
Gundam's Time Shinning
Seiko is launching a custom watch series inspired the 40 years of the Mobile Suit Gundam. Mobile Suit Gundam is a series that originally aired in April 7, 1979. Gundam belongs to the mecha genre and basically, changed face for the genre in what it represents in the industry today. Sunrise was going to officially the name of the series as Freedom Fighters Gunboy until creator, Yoshiyuki Tomino, changed the name. He liked the name of freedom and Gunboy to the point where he combined the two to form Gundam. Seiko has made 3 colors of infamous Gundams portrayed in in the Gundam series. The limited edition is set in colors of green, silver-blue (white), and deep red Gundams. The green watch is based on the MSIA Gunner Zaku Warrior Green depicted in Gundam Seed Destiny. RX-78-2 Gundam, also known as white Gundam, is a classic Gundam portrayed in Mobile Suit Gundam and resembles the silver-blue Seiko watch. Zeta Gundam Ⅲ P2 TYPE RED is the last and final deep red watch of the 3-piece set. Seiko pays tribute in small ways to the Gundam Franchise like connecting Gundam Build Divers through 2 dive watches. I hope the Seiko Prospex Collection excites watch enthusiasts and anime fans alike. The watches are a good statement in knowing but in reality the price is way too expensive to buy any from the set. By the way, the prices of the green and red are only $3,600 while the silver-blue is $5,600. Find out more on Maxim website or Seiko Instagram post of the Prospex collector's special edition set.
https://www.maxim.com/style/seiko-celebrates-40th-anniversary-mobile-suit-gundam-2019-4