Highlander and Post-Apocalyptic Dystopia

To do Highlander, one must begin with Princes of the universe by Queen, it is law, just like "There can be only one." So by now you may have noticed I'm a little random, but such is a writer's mind, it's all relevant in it's own way. This time we talk about Highlander, and most importantly Highlander the animated series, an under-appreciated show which for me set the stage for post apocalyptic dystopia. First, let's back up and explain what Highlander is, in case you don't know, it's about immortals. They aren't gods or anything they're just people who will not die for any reason except decapitation, which conveniently means everyone needs to keep a sword in case you run into another immortal and need to chop his head off or at least to defend yours. Decapitation is important because when it does happen, then there's the Quickening, a transfer of all power from the dead immortal to the one who killed him, or to the nearest immortal, on the rare occasion an immortal gets beheaded by some other means than another immortal's blade, accompanied by an electrical storm that blows up pretty much anything nearby that looks cool while blowing up. There are two stories behind how this became Highlander, the true story according to the creator is that he was on a trip to Scotland and seeing a suit of armor thought "What if that guy was still alive today?" The second story is mine, that someone thought it would be cool if they could create a set of otherwise random circumstances that allowed for medieval swordsmen to fight old school in the modern day. If you watch Highlander you will realize that beyond the title, my version explains it better and probably did happen during production. So, it all starts with Connor MacLeod who was born in the Highlands of Scotland(hence the name) in 1518. He is apparently killed in 1536 during a battle with a band of invading barbarians led by the Kurgan, who is sort of like a Spartan, only more brutal(yeah, he's really that badass). However, Connor comes back to life and is cast out of his clan as a witch. Connor then meets Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez, another immortal who explains the situation, they are both immortal as is the Kurgan, and while none of them know why, they know there are rules: they can only die if they are beheaded, the Quickening will transfer power from victim to victor when it does, they can not have children, they can not fight on holy ground, and in the end there can be only one. What is most confusing about Ramirez is that despite his Spanish name, he is actually Egyptian, and he is played by Sean Connery who bless his heart can not be not Scottish to save his life, and ironically the actual Highlander is played by Frenchman Christopher Lambert, with the super Frenchy silent "T" in his name. This absurdity in casting is highlighted in a scene when MacLeod explains the Scottish delicacy of haggis to Ramirez and the Scotsman says the Frenchman in full brogue "What's haggis? That's disgusting!" Fortunately the ridiculousness is cut short when the Kurgan shows up and kills Ramirez leaving us to finish the movie without him. This whole story is told in flashback intercut with 1985 New York City where Connor is now living in the time of the Gathering, when the last few immortals who still have their heads will fight it out. Coincidentally, the last two are Connor and the Kurgan. I don't really consider that a spoiler because, come on, you had to see that coming. Highlander did so well they made a sequel called Highlander 2:the Quickening, which was so bad even the people who made it just ignore it for the rest of the franchise. So skipping on, they went to make Highlander 3:the Final Dimension, which basically just said some immortals were trapped in a cave and missed the Gathering the first time so Connor gets to fight again. Then there's the series which shifts the focus to Duncan MacLeod, because the coolest immortals are all MacLeods. Duncan was born in 1594, after Connor, but came from the same clan and Connor mentored him, which we see in the first episode when they meet in New York City and then we don't see Connor again until Highlander:Endgame, a movie in which Duncan is forced to take Connor's head so he can have the power to defeat their mutual enemy. Then came Highlander:The Source, which I can only assume was as bad as H2:tQ, though I only say the Source, mistakenly believing it would finally answer the question of the source of the immortals. I should have done more research, it was instead contradictory to everything Highlander had been and I can't believe they actually managed to get the actors from the series to agree to reprise their roles for a movie that undid so much of their good work. The series itself was pretty good, although it seems like there's a ton of immortals out there who managed to live to the modern day without losing their heads because there's one in every friggin' episode, and they all die by the end of their episode, with the exceptions of Mythos, the oldest immortal("Five thousand years ago I took my first head and everything before that is a blur.") Richie the youngest immortal, and Amanda a thief and ex-lover of Duncan who gets her own spin-off, for one season.

This brings us to the least celebrated entry in the franchise, though possibly most deserving, Highlander:the Animated Series. Yes, they actually tried to make a kid's cartoon out of a story of people decapitating each other, which they try to mitigate by creating the new mechanic of a passive Quickening due to the Oath of the Jettator, something which actually drives the series rather than getting in it's way. The immortals have taken the oath of the Jettator to give up fighting and their place in the game and instead share the knowledge they have accumulated over the years with humanity. One immortal, named Kortan(yes, there is a running theme of major Highlander villains being named with the letter K, fans call them "Kimmies") refuses to take the oath and because he is technically the last one left he claims victory by default. Connor MacLeod steps forward almost immediately to stop him, but the oath has significance and for breaking it, Connor dies at the hands of Kortan. The rest of the Jettators retreat and Kortan rules until another immortal is born free from the oath, and that immortal happens to be Quentin MacLeod, who is then mentored by Don Vincente Marino Ramirez, who teaches the young Highlander how to fight and leads him to the other Jettators who can now pass on their knowledge, power, and immortality by simply holding the sword with Quentin and allowing the Quickening to complete the transfer leaving the Jettator now an ordinary mortal to live out their days in peace. They shift the focus significantly to knowledge, a factor never mentioned before in Highlander, in this series each Jettator has a significant area of expertise and that knowledge is why the Highlander seeks them out. Sounds a little lame huh? That's because I didn't yet say that this all takes place in a post-apocalyptic wasteland and that Kortan rules the Earth unopposed for seven hundred years before Quentin comes along. The entire reason for the Oath of the Jettator in the first place was the Great Catastrophe, which is mentioned several times in the series but only a few times do they ever get close to explaining that it was a meteor/comet colliding with the Earth. Wildlife has mutated, Ramirez and Quentin ride bipedal camel looking creatures called gavors and Quentin has a pet named Gaul, which is a gran, a six-limbed monkey-dog hybrid that makes sounds like a howler monkey. The sky ranges from yellow to red to brown with dark clouds, and everyone lives in fear of Kortan. This was the darkest cartoon I watched as a kid and made me grow up a little, particularly one episode featuring a Jettator named Prometheus who had knowledge of the atomic bomb. Prometheus has been living in an abandoned missile silo where enough radioactive material was left behind to give him radiation poisoning and he suffers all of the symptoms except the sweet release of death, and now wears a mask to cover his deformed face. That episode did not sugar coat it at all, except sparing us actually having to see his face, although Quentin's reaction when Prometheus shows his face briefly is quite telling. Also, take into consideration that earlier in the episode his guardians are a race of blue skinned web fingered people who have mutated due to the the radiation, and let's not forget what happened to the world that allowed gavors and grans to even evolve in the past seven hundred years. Straying a bit, this series came out around the same time as Final Fantasy VI and I couldn't help but find parallels, grans to moogles(little white creatures), gavors to chocobos(bipedal mounts), espers to Jettators(both pass power and knowledge onto another), and most eerie of all, Cyan and Kefka bear a strong resemblance to Ramirez and Malone respectively. Malone is a clown that serves Kortan as the human key, the only person who can open the vault where Kortan keeps his sword using a lock that is molded to the mortal's body. Malone may not look much like Kefka, but his personality is spot on, and Cyan and Ramirez are just pallette swaps of each other. Also, the World of Ruin from the second half of the game bears a strong resemblance to the world of Highlander the Animated Series...hmm, maybe I'm just making connections that aren't really there. Anyway, this was my first foray into the post-apocalyptic dystopian genre and has set my expectations on everything I have read or watched since.

Bad movies that ruin your childhood memories

I have been alluding to this for a while, and now I must deliver. Yes, Hollywood does tend to ruin our favorite franchises with bad movies. They invest huge amounts of time and money in TV shows, toys and video games getting u to love a property, then someone decides to make a movie and apparently nobody at the Hollywood studio thinks they actually have to make any effort to match the source material and then they are surprised why it bombs. The good news and bad news is they are actually improving, it's good news because they are getting better, it's bad news because the bar was set so low, that better as a relative measure is still bad. In fact, I have been so numbed I've actually taken to defending some recent attempts because my standards are such that, compared to the crap I've seen, I actually believe they are at least heading in the right direction.

Let's start at the beginning, with the movie that taught me the true meaning of disappointment, Super Mario Bros. If you have not seen this movie, I would recommend you see this only if you are a masochist who wants to see the worst movie ever based on a video game or any other property related to anything you loved as a kid, because this movie is the worst. WORST! WORST! Let's start with what they get right, because that's the short list; characters with the following names from the Super Mario franchise appear in the movie: Mario, Luigi, Daisy, Koopa, Yoshi, Toad, Iggy (koopa kid) Spike, Big Bertha, and Bob-omb(last three from SMB3, Bob-omb isn't a character, just a wind-up explosive toy that is actually the most accurately depicted element in the entire movie). Yoshi is a dinosaur, Mario is portly and has a mustache, both brothers are Italian plumbers from Brooklyn, which at least at the time was considered canon. Also there is fungus everywhere although it rarely f ever comes in the form of a mushroom, and thus concludes the list of what was right, and we still have over an hour of screentime...oh boy. The movie starts with a backstory that the meteor that ended the dinosaurs actually created a parallel dimension where dinosaurs were sent and continued to evolve into humanoids, and the meteor happened to land where what is now the river between Brooklyn and Manhattan. At the time, dinosaurs and evolution were hot subjects but the whole thing was only relevant for the existence of Yoshi who is little more than a cameo, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Luigi gets a date with Daisy, a paleontologist who has discovered the missing link between dinosaurs and humans, something that you will never actually hear about again because it only exists in this movie. Daisy's dig site is interfering with the land development of Scarpacci(yes, I actually remember the name to decades later) who happens to be Mario's rival and least favorite person, who decides to flood the digsite from nearby sewers. Daisy decides to call the plumbers she met that day, Mario and Luigi, to fix the leak in the pipes down under Brooklyn. Of course this takes them near the meteor and the portal to Dinohattan. Yes, Dinohattan, the other dimension's Manhattan populated by dinosaurs who have evolved, at least superficially, into humans. Iggy and Spike abduct Daisy and Lugi pursues her, and Mario pursues Luigi. Soon we learn Daisy is actually the princess of Dinohattan who was sent to our world as a baby to protect her when Koopa took over. They don't explain a whole lot about how Koopa took over, but apparently he got access to a machine that causes virtually instantaneous reversal of evolution that allowed him to turn the old king, Daisy's father, into a fungus that now covers Dinohattan and anyone who opposes him gets devolved into a goomba, which looks nothing like the goombas from the games, they're just reptilian enough to be stupid goons. Now, as bad as this plot is so far, it is very important to point out that Koopa, Iggy and Spike are not even remotely reptilian looking, Koopa is portrayed as being more like Donald Trump here. He doesn't even have any interesting quirks, except that he seems to be a germaphobe, which in retrospect makes sense when you realize the old King is a fungus, but is still putting up a fight so he's probably afraid the old King will infect him, but they never make that clear so it's just weird. Anyway, what Koopa really wants is Daisy's crystal pendant which is actually the missing piece of the meteor and if it gets put back the two worlds will fuse back together and Dinohattan and all of it's inhabitants will superimpose themselves on Manhattan. However, Daisy doesn't have the pendant, when Luigi was trying to save her back in Brooklyn, he accidentally snatched it from her. Meanwhile, Mario and Luigi get arrested along with Toad who is singing a protest song, a crime punishable by de-evolution into a goomba, while the brothers get mugshots but then manage to get away. When Koopa realizes he needs the brothers they become public enemy number one with a bounty of a million Koopons and the chase is on, although Koopa is such a terrible tyrant that nobody is loyal and many actually choose to help the brothers, including Big Bertha, who gives them Thwomp-Stompers, jet boots that let them jump away from their pursuers. Finally there's a climactic showdown where a Bob-omb that Luigi wound up at the beginning of the movie that has been guided around Dinohattan by the fungal king finally explodes at just the right time to hit Koopa and save the brothers. This leads to an accident with a portable de-evolution ray gun that turns Koopa into a Tyranosaurus, but don't blink because no sooner does he show his true face than the brothers use the devo guns to turn him into primordial ooze. If you are still reading this, congratulations, you have more patience than the Super Mario Bros. movie deserves. It was so bad that Bob Hoskins who played Mario admits to drinking his way through the movie knowing it was bad while he made it and when asked the worst project he ever worked on in three distinct and different ways in one interview unequivocally answered this one. Even Nintendo Power, on a Mario Timeline, simply said "Yeah it happened, let's move on." I have never seen anyone write anything positive about this movie and I will not be the first, in my opinion it was every bit as bad as everyone else says it is, if not worse. Really, if you get the chance to see this movie, even for free, even if someone pays you, run away.

Hollywood did not learn their lesson and went on to make more movies based on video games, which I could not bring myself to watch after the trauma of Super Mario Brothers. I caught Double Dragon on cable once, which was actually more on the mark, but still awful. Double Dragon focused on Billy and Jimmy Lee who were street fighters facing the shadow gang including Abobo, the Shadow Boss, and I think Linda and Mary Anne/Marion fit in too. However, they once again went with a dystopian post-apocalyptic city vibe and to tie in the dragon of the title threw in medallions that granted super strength and shadow magic, which just took the whole thing too far. I got my money's worth when I watched it for free. Then there was Street Fighter, which I still haven't seen because Dhalsim is a scientist rather than a yogi and as soon as I read that in the promotional materials I just gave up. There was an animated series that followed it up where Dhalsim turned to yoga while seeking redemption after mutating Blanka and many other efforts were made to redeem the project which proves it's not altogether impossible, it's just that feature films do not seem to be the place. Then came Mortal Kombat. Now, some of you may think the movie was garbage, but let me make this clear, when it first came out, I had just seen three movies go by where it was clear Hollywood looked at a list of characters and said "we don't need to know anymore, we'll just make up some crap, nobody will care." So in light of the horrors I had seen, Mortal Kombat was refreshing in how well it actually followed source material. The movie featured the original cast, characters that didn't appear for very long were at least made to look and sound exactly like the characters in the game so we knew exactly who they were, the extra characters, Kitana and Reptile were actually relevant and taken from the direct sequel so their stories were kept consistent, and the story was actually taken directly from the game instead of making up something completely different and unrelated. I was so happy, my faith in movies based on video games was restored. And then came Final Fantasy Spirits Within. I have already mentioned this in an earlier post(see Final Fantasy in the post history) but since then I have found out not only was it made in house, but the director was Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy, as in the original video game that started the series and everything since. This is like finding out that Akira Toriyama was the director for Dragonball Evolution(I'll get to that later). I actually do have a plan for redeeming Spirits Within but it is an ambitious project that involves not only a sequel movie, but also an anime series and not one, but two video games. I can't say too much because I would need Square to back me to get anywhere near anything worth doing, but so far I have plans for a story involving Biggs and Wedge Highwind as a Dragoon and a Red Mage respectively who were chocobo ranchers for Cid, an eccentric airship mechanic, until Aki the Summoner, Gogo the Black Mage, and Sara the White Mage meet them while running from Emperor Garland and his henchman Gilgamesh. For comic relief, the entire thing will be chronicled by Gilbert the Spoony Bard. Yes, I am serious about this, and I guarantee no matter how bad that pitch sounds, it's still not worse than Spirits Within.

So now we come to Dragonball Evolution. Part of why I go easy on this one is that I waited for about a decade for it to happen. I first heard about the Dragonball movie back when DBZ was first airing on Toonami, I think the androids were just appearing for the first time. For years I believed it wouldn't happene at all, so when it did, I was just like, "well, they did it, let's see" and I will admit, it was disappointing. Personally, my biggest disappointment was that I learned they had the same stunt coordinators as the Matrix, which I thought was a good sign, because if you have ever seen the final fight between Neo and Agent Smith in Matrix Revolutions, you can tell that was lifted from Goku vs Frieza. The whole time I was waiting for Neo to unleash a Kamehameha. Sadly, they apparently did not have the budget to give us that kind of sequence in Dragonball Evolution, and if they had, it would have made a huge difference. I know most fans hate the whole movie. Before you slam me for defending it, let me remind you from earlier posts that I am a hardcore Dragonball fan. I actually own a four star dragon ball, just because I couldn't help myself when I saw it at Roc Con. I have cosplayed as Gohan and Piccolo. I have attempted Kamehameha and Kaioken, more than once. I have a Level 99 Piccolo on DBZ Budokai 3. When I defend Dragonball Evolution, I do this as a sacred defender of all things Dragon Ball, so hear me out. Yes, the movie screwed up a lot of things, but, bear in mind, it was covering two out of three story arcs in about two hours, and the story arcs were pretty weird to begin with. If they had been more loyal to the source material, Goku would have befriended a shapeshifting pig, two talking cats, one of which flies, and Piccolo's minions would have been dinosaurs named after instruments. The truth is, the American audience really wanted the fight with Vegeta but Dragon Ball wasn't getting the green light until they explained what the dragon balls were, which means doing the early seasons. The movie did get some things right, the dragon balls were fine, we introduced Chi Chi, Gohan's mother, Roshi, the guy who teaches Goku the Kamehameha, and of course the Kamehameha itself. One of my biggest pet peeves when arguing about this movie is that people complain about Roshi because he doesn't look like he should. Yes, that's true, if they do a sequel, he needs to sit in a make-up chair and get his beard and bald cap or head shaved, but before you get too upset, do you realize who that was? It was Chow Yun Fat from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Do you realize how lucky we are he even bothered to show up on set at all? They probably blew most of their budget on his salary for the film. Yes, he will have to be appropriately aged before they use him again, but be nice to the guy he could just as easily throw you through the wall. Also, only one stripe of blue hair Emmy Rossum? If Ramona Flowers could dye her whole head of hair blue for Scott Pilgrim,you can go all the way for Bulma. Fine, we'll recast the whole movie with Asian actors, it would make more sense, but do you want to go back and do this again, or do you want to just move on to the fight with Vegeta? Here's my pitch for Dragonball Reborn: Five to ten years after Evolution, Goku and Chi Chi are married and have a son, Gohan, who is now old enough to fight. Goku makes a living officially as a security guard for Bulma on her Dragon Ball project, and he actually still owns his dragon ball which is part of the arrangement. Roshi is a martial arts instructor teaching Yamcha and new students, Krillin, Tienshihan and Chiaotzu. Piccolo has been recovering from his fight with Goku and summons a new Oozaru minion, which took some time, explaining the time difference between the movies. The new Oozaru finally arrives near the beginning of the movie and Goku recognizes right away it's one of his kind and goes to fight it. Then the Oozaru changes to human form when it realizes Goku is the former Oozaru who has actually chosen to defy Piccolo, something that never occurred to Oozaru before. The new oozaru turns out to be Raditz and he's more dangerous than Goku because he's not tempered by any sense of kindness and Piccolo actually needs Goku to stop Raditz. They defeat Raditz within the first third of the movie but Goku dies and Raditz says Prince Vegeta is on his way. Piccolo grabs Gohan, the last of the Oozaru blood and desperately tries to train him to fight against Vegeta. Roshi takes his students to see the true master of his order, Kami, who in turn sends Goku to train under King Kai. Vegeta and Nappa appear a year later, Goku is wished back to life, and the ultimate battle plays out in the last third of the movie. Of course the whole movie will be recast with people that hopefully make the fans happy. Now if you don't like that idea, I just give up. One last thing, when DBZ first came to America, I found one site from Japan that refused to talk about Brolly because he wasn't canon. That's right Brolly fans, think about it, given that both future Trunks and baby Trunks are in Legendary Super Saiyan and everybody seems to be able to become Super Saiyan, the only way that movie could fit in the main timeline is one or two days after Cell announces the the Cell Games. Before you rule out a part of the Dragon Ball franchise, try giving it another look, relax and see that Evolution was a good set up for what we want even if it wasn't that great in itself.

Finally, I come to the Last Airbender. When I meet fans at conventions, they hate it, ignoring the irony that they are white people cosplaying while complaining about white people playing the same characters professionally. Compared to the crap I have seen before, I give mad props to M. Night Shamylan for staying mostly on point. Okay, so some details were off, but do you realize how much worse it could have been? Appa and Momo were recognizable, as compared to Super Mario Bros. and even Dragon Ball Evolution (Shenron...not bad, but not right). The story actually went along what it was supposed to be with minimal changes. Ultimately, the biggest flaw was casting. I think the races of the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom should have been reversed, clearly the Fire Nation is Japanese. Also, the Water Tribes were clearly Inuit, not caucasian. And yes, I caught that the Earthbenders should have been imprisoned on a ship and firebending without an external source of fire shouldn't have been as arcane as they made it seem. That said, everything happened in order without any extra events being added in, Night, clearly paid more attention to the source material than any one in Hollywood has since the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie(which I did not list because the movies that I did mention are in a whole other league). After watching the movie, I was actually excited about a sequel, but because of you bratty little hipsters who don't even know what bad is, the project got canned. Listen, kids, I feel your pain, but my point is, if you want a movie at all, you can't just hate whatever they make because you didn't get cast. You need to put it on the scale, and you need to decide did they at least kinda try. Did they get anything right or did they slap a title on something completely irrelevant? Demand better yes, but when they do make an improvement, no matter how small, give them some positive feedback that they are at least going in the right direction, or they will stop making stuff for us altogether. That's how we lost Toonami the first time.

TORA-CON 2014

That is me in the video above in the grey jacket. I pointed out that Colleen Clinkenbeard was in Samurai 7 and made a joke about the unintended side effect of the Gum-Gum Fruit when she replied to a request to do Luffy's voice by saying "I'm having a baby!" This panel was the first of four that I went to last Saturday at Tora-Con at the Rochester Institute of Technology. For each panel I stood in line for a n hour, but it was worth it to be only feet (or meters if you do metrics) from the voices of Anime. For the record these people are in my head every time I write dialogue for 7th Moon, Colleen in particular for Douji. Collen talked alot about the voice acting process and brought up "walla" which made me think of Soldier A, which I hope Vic Mignogna does when he comes for Roc-Con in September. However, Colleen had to keep her Luffy screaming to a minimum because she's pregnant and was afraid she would "gum gum vomit" over everyone. So if you see Colleen, tell her congratulations!

My next stop was the Toonami Faithful Podcast panel where I met the dude who does the Toonami Faithful Podcast, obviously. Just before he started I chatted with him about 7th Moon and he said he couldn't do much because he wasn't official Toonami, but he might mention it to Jason. That's Jason DeMarco, the head of Toonami. Yeah, he can't just drop that name and expect I don't know what's going on, he may not be much of a middle man, but he's closer than me, so let's keep our fingers crossed. I also mentioned the "Pardon our Dust" promo that inspired me and he said he didn't remember that, I said I was more faithful than he was. If you're reading this dude, just kidding, just watch the video on YouTube and you're all caught up. There was one dude who actually complained about too much Naruto on Toonami. How the hell do you complain about one of the Big 3 on Toonami? I a proud of Toonami that they have all three right now, Luffy gets on my nerves but I'd never publicly complain about One Piece...you know, aside from right now... Anyway I am biased because 7th Moon is Shonen and I want to keep Shonen on Toonami until I join the line-up. In the meantime, I've also requested Saiyuki, and I got confirmation that Jason DeMarco is dedicated to not letting live action ruin Toonami the way Reality television show ruined MTV. Also learned the true story behind Intruder changing TOM and replacing Sonny Strait with Steve Blum all those years ago, and we hope #Intruder2 doesn't mean the end of Steve. Personally, I hope there's some sort of time distortion that allows both TOMs to coexist simultaneously like in some certain episodes of Doctor Who.

Next it was "How to Audition for Animation" with Tia Ballard, AKA Happy the Cat. She was awesome, if you ever get the chance to meet her she is the most wonderful person, enjoy every second of it. She tried to teach us about how to audition for anime at Funimation including learning about characters by their appearance, and the poor thing kept getting picked on by people pointing out that "Blond hair and blue eyes tend to mean ditzy" and of course that describes Tia, except that she is nice and you should never call her ditzy. Also, try not to bring up Cat Planet Cuties, she says she didn't know about the nudity until she was too far into it, although it wasnt like she was naked, she was just lending her voice to a drawing of a naked character. Anyway we spent the second half practice auditioning, which is what took so long, I've been trying to find the video of me doing Rogue the Bat, my best line was "Mmm...what was that about? What did you do with my Emerald?" Only imagine it in a much more suggestive, and it probably sounded like Steve Blum's Orochimaru with a little bit of Leeron from Gurren Laggann. If you find the video, it is hilarious, please share it with me. Some other high points were when someone said Tails must be a mutant because of his two tails to which I had to reply "We just saw blue and pink hedgehogs and a bright red echidna and the two-tailed fox is what's throwing you off?" and also when people were trying to describe Dr. Eggman, guessing pear-shaped among others and I practically screamed "HE'S SHAPED LIKE AN EGG! THAT'S WHY HE'S CALLED DR. EGGMAN!" Also, Tia's favorite characters are Scratch and Grounder from the old Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog with Jaleel White and Tia pinted out a "Sonic Sez" where Sonic explains what to do if somebody touches you inappropriately, and yes she actually played this when I called it into question:

Finally I went to a panel with Colleen where she was joined by Chuck Huber. The man is insane in the best possible way, there are over a dozen videos on YouTube of the panel he did just before that I didn't make because I was with Tia(wouldn't have changed a thing). The best moment of the panel was when he was talking about how he sometimes does free voice dubbing for fans and when Colleen asked himwhy he said "I'm a whore!" to which she replied "But you're not getting paid." To which he replied "I'm a slut!" and Colleen said "I'M a whore!" I did find it very encouraging when he told a story of how one of his freebies turned into a very profitable situation when the game became a big hit in Australia and he got a large check for his part in it, and he didn't even know he would get paid at all. Oh for me to be the next miracle success like that!

After all that it finally hit me I'd spent about twelve hours in line or sitting in panels with no food or bathroom break. I went home exhausted and missed the rest of the convention. It's definitely more fun to just sit at a table and watch cosplayers go by and be worshipped as an author, and I'll get  that opportunity agian in September at Roc-Con, and I already got my ticket for Vic Mignogna! See you all then, in the meantime, after waiting in line and arguing with others about movies based on cartoons, I may have to present my case in the next post. Until then, watch Toonami and stay gold!

Soldier A the unsung heroes of anime: Voice actors and cosplayers

This weekend is Tora-Con, the first convention I'm going to since I started this blog, and I may post some stuff about it afterwards, but first I want to let people know I will be there, so if you are in Rochester and you have the chance to go to Tora-Con, I hope to see you there. I did not get a table this year, but I did last year. Hopefully I get one next year, in the mean time, this year is all about networking and catching a Vocaloid Performance, but mostly networking. Anime conventions typically have voice actors, at least one we actually know, this time it's Colleen "Luffy" Clinkenbeard, and I hope to give her and the other voice actors my book 7th Moon and get them in on my project, or at the very least, get her to sign a copy of this meme I made:

Because I at least have to respect that aspect of Monkey D. Luffy. But seriously, I do have to give a lot of credit to voice actors, especially the ones who dub anime, it is a thankless underappreciated job and if I did it, I would live for conventions where fans make voice actors feel like rock stars. For one thing the job mostly consists of sitting in a recording studio, which is basically a closet with a microphone and watch cartoons desperately trying to match mouth flaps. It is incredibly important work in my opinion and I appreciate everyone who does it, their voices were in my head when I wrote 7th Moon and I really want the pros to work on the final project. Historically it's important to recognize how far anime dubbing has come, since the evolution of it is at the heart of the sub vs dub debate. I remember once when I was in college I joined the Anime Club where we watched anime in original Japanese with English subtitles, and once I suggested we switch to the English dub. The room went silent and the president simply said "There's the door." Now, that was over ten years ago, and I must stress, there was a much bigger difference back then, as opposed to now when English voice actors put forth real effort. There have been anime dubs for about as long as there has been anime, but up until the turn of the millenium, American importers did a crappy job because they were marketing it to kids and figured by the time we got old enough to have more discerning tastes, we would outgrow cartoons and this stuff wouldn't matter anyway. This worked until my generation, because of two major factors, video games and internet. First, video games are a whole new way to market cartoons to kids that added a new dimension the previous generation didn't have. We didn't just watch cartoons, we interacted in video games between episodes, and when we couldn't play video games(which was rare after Game Boy) we would play with plastic action figures. We would literally eat, drink and sleep our favorite shows because we got sponsored cereals, fruit snacks, crackers, fruit drinks and by the time we went to sleep we were dreaming about our favorite shows. We were a generation that thrived on the nostalgia and when we got internet the first thing we did was contact people from Japan and talk to them about our favorite video game/cartoon combos from their country. And the first thing our bilingual Japanese pen pals did was tell us how bad our imports were screwed up. Some infamous examples include Warriors of the Wind, a dub of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind that was edited so far beyond recognition that Ghibli issued a new rule that their films were not to be edited in the future, and Samurai Pizza Cats, dubbed so inaccurately that it's considered an entirely seperate show, and Robotech which was edited together from multiple anime, primarily Macross. As a result of the revelation that we got crap dubs, a black market of illegally imported fan-subs opened up over the internet-I'm not making that up, I first saw the Bardock Special as a fan-sub on VHS that my friend lent me. Yeah that's right, this was in the days of VHS and dial-up so we couldn't even get instant streaming online, so we had to wait for snail mail from overseas. Fans were desperate, but the market spoke and eventually the companies realized they needed to step up their game so now voice actors know they have to bring their A-game. I feel that most of them are, the only complaint I've really had since Samurai Pizza Cats was Luffy in One Piece-until I heard the original Japanese and found out the English dubbers were just trying to emulate the Japanese, affirming that the Americans are doing the best job they can. Among the best is Vic Mignogna, who I mention really only because I met him at Roc-Con last year and wanted to show this picture:

And as long as we're talking about conventions, I want to give a shout out to cosplayers, especially female cosplayers. Yes, you know I'm singling you out because you're sexy, but that's only half of it. The other half is that you took the time to watch a cartoon or play a video game long enough to recognize a character and think to yourself, "I want to dress up as that character". When I was young, such women did not exist. Geek was totally a male thing, no female ever went anywhere near it, or at least not admitting it. Our species was doomed to die out because we could never get girls. Then one day, cosplayers happened, hot chicks dressed up as superheroes, not because they were getting paid, but because they actually thought it was fun. And we deserve it, if the other guys can get cheerleaders and models, then we deserve cosplayers. Nerds need love too. So ladies, if you catch any flak for being a cosplayer, just know you are appreciated, and who really matters, haters or fans? I especially want to thank Stan Lee and the other folks at Marvel for Psylocke. She is not the best known character, she has not been in the movies or any animated series, even in the comics she may not have the biggest part, but she is a very popular cosplay. Psylocke is probably popular because it's a simple cosplay, you can google "female cosplay" and get an easy costume for the weekend, a one-piece swimsuit, thigh high boots and elbow length gloves. But it sure looks good, showing off all of a lady's curves and as an obscure character gives you as much credit for being nerdy as sexy. When I'm at a convention selling books, stuck at my table, it is the highlight of my day to see you ladies walk by. That and Finn cosplayers whom I ask "What time is it?" and they are obliged to answer "Adventure Time!"