Surfacing

Well, after spending the last month or so recovering from the month or two before that, I took some steps along the long road back to normality today. Had a job interview this afternoon, which went all right (as far as I know). After that, a dinner party at little sister Anna's place, during which I finally got to meet some people from the Neil Gaiman board, which I very occasionally post on.

A number of them are mid-road-trip after visiting the San Diego Comic-Con International. I am very jealous. Sort of.

Do not doubt the power of dedicated fans

The opening animation to 1984's Daicon IV, one of the bigger Japanese science fiction conventions.

This animation was made by a group of (at that time) amateurs. See how many different sci-fi franchises get skewered.

(If you're thinking that this looks really good for amateurs, well not long after this they became GAINAX, the company responsible for Evangelion and FLCL and other famous anime...)

While in Japan, I became a fan of the manga/anime/television series Nodame Cantabile. Since it's almost certain that the (live-action) series will never be brought over and localized, I decided to hunt down the DVDs and bring them home with me.

(Yes, I'm aware that there are at least two fan-subbed versions of the show floating around on teh intarwebes.)

SO, one season, 13 one-hour episodes, six discs. How much does a season set of DVDs cost in Japan?

MSRP: ¥23,940 (tax included). That's about $250. The Amazon price is ¥18,151 ($190). (I found it at a used shop, thank goodness.)

I picked up a copy of the Del Rey American version of the manga the other day, flipped to the translator's notes, and was annoyed to find out that a few of the translations are flat out wrong.

[BEGIN pedantic]

1. A harisen is a large paper fan used to smack people for various comedic reasons; the character of Dr. Eto is nicknamed "Harisen" because he uses one on his students. The translator rendered this as "Blowfish" (harisenbo), more commonly "fugu".
2. In the liner notes, the translator explained that the name Koshien refers to an amateur baseball team of which lead character Nodame is a fan. In reality, Koshien is the name of the stadium where the annual high school baseball tournaments are played.
   

[END pedantic]