Classic Rock Overdrive: Your dad’s music in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure

Believe it or not, anime has a lot in common with rock and roll. They both inspire great fandom, huge arguments, and sometimes brilliance that transcends pop culture into the realm of something more universally accepted as “art.” But perhaps the purest forms of both media revel in the lowbrow, the seedy, the less-than-distinguished. That is to say: a loud, primitive, vintage-sounding rock and roll record by Guitar Wolf or Billy Childish may not be high art, and neither is Kono Naka ni Hitori, Imouto ga Iru!, but they’re both fun and your parents hate them.

Somewhere between the early stomp of Eddie Cochran and the insipid horndoggery of Nickelback lies the 70s. And therein lies a metagenre deified by many a radio station across the United States and held in similar reverence by Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. I’m talking about Classic Rock.

There are plenty of kinds of classic rock, many of them terrible, although some are downright listenable. All are fair game for these characters of the “Phantom Blood” arc. I’ve included a bevy of YouTube links for your edification (and sometimes pain).

Colloquium: Anime We Would Really Like to See

I expect the storyboard on my desk by next Tuesday.

tiboreau: Last week We Remember Love aniblogger Ghostlightning challenged his readers with an ultimatum. Don’t like some of the anime that airs each season? Well, what type of anime would you like to see—and be creative! Inspired by both the challenge and Ghostlightning’s own creative anime concoction, a few of Altair & Vega‘s writers were motivated to share their own anime concepts. We hope you enjoy!

That Lingering Feeling, part 4

It’s strange, in every season there’s always a single opening sequence and ending sequence that stands apart from the rest as the example that compels me to seek it out. And while there are several incredibly good opening songs this season (Persona 4’s comes to mind easily), there’s only been one song that has truly grabbed me like no other. That’s Un-Go’s “Fantasy”, by LAMA. The melancholy minor key tonality of the vocals being pulled along by the repetitive lilt of the piano transfixes me like no other. I’ve enjoyed several opening songs so far, but none have really grabbed me viscerally so  much as this particular song has. Perhaps I need a little more time for the songs to grow on me. I know for instance that I didn’t know how much I enjoyed Tiger & Bunny’s Orion wo Nazoru until it was gone.

SENRIGAN SENRIGAN!

That Lingering Feeling, part 2

Occasionally, it’s not just the song that calls to our attentions, it’s the visuals in the sequence itself. That’s not to say that the song itself is an afterthought, but I theorize that once an episode of anime is over, we have a tendency to already be on our way out so to speak. It may explain why a lot of times the visuals of an ending sequence seem very haphazard and half-baked in comparison to the comparably more upbeat opening pieces of many shows which are priming you through both songs and visuals to internalize the mood and tone of what it is you’re about to watch. I will be the first to admit, that if the ending song doesn’t immediately grab my attention as an episode is finished, I’ll be less likely to pay attention to the visuals themselves.

But hey, sometimes the strength of the visuals themselves are enough to cause them to linger.

That Lingering Feeling, part 1

Rather early on in my fandom, I came across a pair of posts that discussed what the role of the opening and ending to an episode of anime is. It’s rather easy to define what an opening’s purpose is. That role is one that is meant to prepare and set the audience’s expectations through animation and music, and which sets the tone for the story at the beginning. Ballads, j-rock, j-pop, high energy, low energy, the mood that the creators mean to set is limited only to the vision and talent of the composers involved in the project.

What seemed to elude clearer definition however, was the role of the ending. When I posed this question, the answers that came back were clearly a lot more personal, abstract. My favorite endings leave a sort of mental residue that stays with you as the episode closes out, lingering like a strong memory of an important event that happened to you sometime in the past. Mawaru Penguindrum’s Dear Future achieves something to this effect.

An Artist’s Message: How Yusuke Yoshino Explains the Hipster in Some of Us

"To live is the ugliest act."

When people choose to follow a band or an artist there may come a point in time, usually after an outburst of fame and fortune, that the artist’s music will no longer resonate with its fans as it once did.

Ne Me Quitte Pas: Atmosphere and Culture Differences in Ikoku Meiro no Croisée

Down in Paris they walk fast
That is, unless they’re walking slow
And in cafes they look away
That is, unless they look right in
And in the gardens I get lost
That is, unless I’m getting found
And if you are the ghost of New York city
Won’t you stick around?

-Regina Spektor, “Ne Me Quitte Pas”