Remember when hentai was hard to find on the Nets?

I really don’t mind writing about this here because クロス† チャネル is my bastion of revealing all my anime related urges, joys, sorrows and experiences. I’ve done it many times before talking about my fetishes and my love for traps. Not to mention some of those doujinshi reviews I’ve done in the past. So, why not just talk about this topic? Anyone remember the days during the 90s when hentai was actually pretty hard to find? Nowadays you can find it anywhere, and also free for that matter. But back in the day, you had all these shitty pay sites, which looked like they didn’t even have anything good to offer for that matter. I never subscribed to one so I never knew what kind of content they ever gave or if it was good. Their content always looked fan made and badly drawn. Anyone remember Dragon Moon Z or whatever the hell it was called? Horrible stuff.

Back then, my main source that I used was Anipike and way to go Yahoo image search. Anipike was a great place in the 90s because during the 90s everyone and anyone made their own website, but now it’s all about blogs. On Anipike they had a hentai directory, that you could just look up the various hentai sites that they had collected together. A lot of these places had the same kind of material though, and most were pay sites. Some weren’t bad though. I remember going to this one site. It had Dragon in it I think, but it was actually pretty neat and featured galleries to a bunch of different anime female characters. There was this other site which actually is still around although abandoned. Probably has tons of wandering viruses on it too I bet. I wonder how the hell it’s still around even today? Must be all the fucking ads on the front page. Who knows? Although, I liked this site because it actually hosts a lot of H CGs and back in the day this was like, “Oh my God, awesome pictures!”

There was this one french site I went to that hosted a lot of doujinshi, but the name I’ve forgotten. It had Manga in the title. It’s like a lot of these names just kind of gone into the seas of time. That place was a good site too since it was pretty diverse. Anyone remember that one H manga about those fairies or that what is it Alice in Sexland shit? The pinnacle of H manga during the 90s. It was actually pretty humorous. My favorite was probably Super Taboo. How the main character always ended up fighting with his reason and animal instincts. In the end, his urges always beat his reason and he’d fuck his sister, mom or both. Hilarious.

I remember E-Hentai before it became what it is today. It’s still pretty much the same but definitely improved from it’s late 90s or was it early 2000s version? Either way, I remember going there from time to time when it had .net and when the name was Euphoric Visions at one point.

Nowadays a person can just go to places like E-Hentai where doujinshi and manga are just uploaded by users, 4chan and other image boards like Danbooru host a variety of H and non-H images, and Hong Fire has you covered if you want H CGs. Not to mention fucking torrents and rapidshit everywhere. All if this is free albeit most of it is stolen. ::cough::

It’s awesome how things have just gotten easier to find or maybe I just never was looking in the right places. Back in the day, everyone was talking about OMG anal tentacles raping young girls whenever hentai was brought up, but I’d say shitting dick nipples is even a more powerful image of the weirdness of Japanese porn in today’s age.

What kinds of experiences did you have growing up experiencing H? I know a lot of people associated anime with H because sometimes I’d get, “Oh, you watch that tentacle rape stuff from Japan.” Whenever I’d mention anime to other people in school.

On the influence of American animation on early Japanese animation

Hm, I suppose I am showing my ignorance of this topic but I am quite surprised how much early Japanese animation had been influenced by foreign shows and cartoons. I guess it was a little dumb to think that they always had these ideas, but I probably would have come to this conclusion if I thought about it hard. I’m taking this Asian Relations class and we’re required to write a research paper. It can be anything at all as long as it has culture going in or out of an Asian country. So, in the end I decided on the influence of Japanese animation on American media and vice versa. To be honest, I didn’t think there was an influence of American media on Japan, but as I stated I’ve been wrong.

I think it’s really interesting and I wish there was a lot more reliable sources about this because it seems like I’m reading a lot of fan made material where its credibility is debatable. I can believe Disney films were an inspiration for Momotaro’s Divine Sea Warriors, but when I start reading stuff like Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie actually influenced the magical girl genre and shows similar to Ah My Goddess where a girl just instantly comes out of no where, I start scratching my head. I watched reruns of these shows as a kid and thought nothing of them. I guess another one’s trash is another one’s treasure.

The paper has to be a minimum of 6 pages but I’m probably going to end up going over because it just seems like I have a lot of ground to cover with some of the influences of America onto Japan and the other way around. I think once I get to the Japanese animation influence in American culture things will become easier. I’ll of course mention The Matrix and Ghost in the Shell, and shows like Samurai Jack and Avatar which have an ongoing story and not one shot like most American cartoons are, the facial expressions in Teen Titans too. I guess if you can call it a thesis, it’s that this surge of interest in Japanese culture through it’s popular media and in particular animation, is a lot similar to the surge of interest in Japanese culture during the Meiji period with its ukiyo-e prints and such. Both forms of media were thought of as nothing big or special during their times but when people abroad found it they instantly ate it up. Something like this I guess. Wish this paper would write itself though…

Lately, I’ve been thinking about just how one can become an anime scholar. Now, I know you’re laughing but I mean as a media. There really isn’t a whole lot of material outside the U.S about the history of Japanese animation. I dunno, I’ve grown to have an interest in popular culture studies even though I abhor American pop culture. So, maybe just the American anime sub culture is what I’m interested in. Oh, this is probably one of those instances where you should say, “Don’t quit your day job.”

Taisho Yakyuu Musume – Strike Out

It felt hard to watch Taisho Yakyuu Musume. I’ve been trying to finish it since September and now it’s the end of November. Just sad. It’s a shame because it has a lot of things which should make it a solid watch. Consistent animation, a diverse set of female characters, an interesting setting. Despite these things it was lacking and I couldn’t stay interested.

Bamboo Blade was a fun watch and what essentially made that was the interesting slice of life elements, character interactions, and at times there were those Kendo matches. Bamboo Blade was more about the character relations than it was Kendo. Kendo was an important element to the series but it was mainly something to allow the characters to grow and interact.

Taisho Yakyuu Musume does the opposite. It focuses more on the Baseball elements and practice than using it as a vehicle for character development. Don’t get me wrong, there are those slice of life elements at times but not enough to really keep me interested long. I enjoyed the romance elements too but that isn’t touched on very much either. I would have liked to see more of Koume and Saburou interact, and there was also that one guy who was interested in the glasses girl too. Those things are elements that I liked but they weren’t developed. ;_;

The setting is excellent. Watching the first episode definitely gave me a Sakura Taisen vibe. More anime seriously need to take place during the 1920s Japan. It is just a fresh setting of trolleys, Japanese and Western goods being presented in a modernizing Japan. Something not seen very often in anime. It’s all about modern and futuristic settings. Baccano! was also a fun watch purely due to it’s American 1930s setting. Anime needs more of this!

I couldn’t help but think that the characters really reminded me a lot of the Idolm@ster girls. Only visually though. I thought I was crazy honestly, but Evirus at Karmaburn refers to Taisho Yakyuu Musume as Not Idolm@ster Baseball. So, maybe I’m not so crazy afterall.

Ultimately, it is the 12 episode limit that handicaps Taisho Yakyuu Musume the most. If there were more to work with there probably would have been more character development and slice of life. I’d say if you like Baseball and anime, you should probably look into this show. You’d probably enjoy it. I didn’t because of the focus on the sports element more than the characters. Nonetheless an alright watch, and I really like the concept. Probably would go under a lot of people’s radar as something worth watching.

I want to see Satoshi Urushihara’s designs in anime more

I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t know who Satoshi Urushihara is since most of the stuff he works on has been for the Growlanser and Langrisser franchises. Two games that are pretty obscure and not very popular Stateside. Also, the anime he has worked on hasn’t been that good or it’s porn related. Regardless, I really like his character designs in everything he’s done. There is a level of detail and such that is appealing to my nostalgic yearning for character designs of yesteryear. Not to mention his female characters are freaking hot.

I just watched Plastic Little today and yeah it wasn’t all that good, and it had a shit ton of bare breasts (This isn’t a complaint). It was decent like all the OVAs I’ve been watching from the 90s lately. But, I really liked the character designs, which is why I want to see more of his stuff animated. He doesn’t need to direct or anything like he’s done for most of his stuff, just provide designs like what CLAMP did for Code Geass. Also, over the summer I found myself watching a lot of the openings to Growlanser and Langrisser thinking, “Hey, these designs are cool looking.” He could do the designs for characters in a medieval setting because we definitely don’t have enough of that. Instead we get shit like The Sacred Blacksmith… Missing shows with settings like Lodoss and Scrapped Princess.

His character designs have perked my interest more for the two game franchises he’s worked on. In particular, I want to play Langrisser 3 just because Rifani is cute and the game has some kind of love system like Sakura Taisen implemented into it. I actually remember stumbling upon this character years ago in like 1998 or something back on the old Internets, but I never knew what she was from until recently. Weird how stuff like that works out. Langrisser 3 was originally on the Saturn but now it’s on the Playstation 2 as well. So I have two options. Either version is going to cost me an arm and a leg. It’s so ridiculous how an import Sega Saturn is over 100 dollars when it’s like 2 bucks in Japan. Fucking stupid. Also, the PS2 game is 80 dollars. These are just lame auction prices. Come on!

Harcore Gaming 101 has an interesting article that briefly goes over the Langrisser series in general. I think it’s funny how in the only one that was released in the US on the Genesis, got the character portraits modified to look more American. I mean, why do that? Imagine if they did that with Shining Force or Phantasy Star 4. It was those anime character designs that actually interested me in them way back when as a child. This was way before I was into anime. I didn’t even know it existed either.

Since I’m on the topic of the Saturn, I always thought the Saturn had a lot of neat gimmicky titles. So, buying a console wouldn’t be a total loss. Would be nice to find one modded though. I’d hate to have to buy ANOTHER console just to play English titles. I tell you it takes up a lot of room buying two of the same consoles but for a whole different set of games.

Well, I most certainly went off on a tangent into another tangent, but that’s always fun.

Dragon Quest 7 impressions – Perhaps the most tedious JRPG I have played

Well, back home for Thanksgiving break and time to get some long awaited R&R. Booted up Dragon Quest 7 from where I stopped last. I have a BIG pet peeve about stopping in a game and just picking it up again a few months later. I absolutely MUST start at the beginning. I don’t know why I do this, I just have this complex. Anyway, due to 7’s episodic type nature, I’ve let this starting over complex slide.

THIS is what moe is

Moe = a jap word for this shit turns me on. Stop making it into something scientific and complex. This isn’t rocket science. Especially tl;dr. Sorry, I have a pet peeve for when people take something like a little stupid cartoon concept and write an over 9000 word essay about it.

A new Lufia game? – Kinda maybe want

A surprising piece of news has been released recently regarding a new game in the Lufia (Estopolis in Japan) series. Apparently a new game in the series is being made for an unnamed console. Is this awesome or is this something to be ignored?

Alien Nine – Whaa?

I’m really disappointed with Alien Nine because I knew this was one of those shows that looks cute but isn’t. It didn’t satisfy me on the level I was expecting. Granted it was a special and not a TV series or even an OAV. So, I won’t be too harsh on it for not really giving me answers or really explaining anything. It was an interesting watch but mostly because I was expecting an answer by the end or some weird surreal shit to go down.

It was kinda trippy, and I suppose there was some symbolism, most of which I didn’t pick up on, but I did find this website that does have some interesting essays about the characters and series in general. After reading them it gave me a different outlook about the series in general.

I didn’t really like any of the characters especially Yuri since she was just a damn crybaby all the time, but perhaps the most sane of all the characters for this reason. I also couldn’t decide if I thought the character designs were interesting or just very weird. The characters had real big ears and no nose in a kind of Final Fantasy Tactics like fashion.

Alien Nine reminded me a lot of Narutaru although I didn’t come out of Alien Nine hating it as much as I did Narutaru. You have aliens, and like weird shit where kids have powers and gruesome stuff is going on. That kind of stuff. Not to mention both are horrible adaptions of their individual manga series. For different reasons though.

I suppose this was essentially to get people to read the Alien Nine manga and if I had the motivation I’d probably read it much like how I should read the Narutaru manga. I’m not too big on manga though. Oh well.

What I watched for Halloween this year: Devil Hunter Yohko

For Halloween this year I watched Devil Hunter Yohko. It’s a 6 episode OAV from the early 90s and finished by 1995. It follows a teenage girl named Yohko Mano who has finally come of age and is granted some magic powers to fight demons. This is all because she is the next in line to become a Devil Hunter. Yohko really captures that typical girl given powers to fight evil. An all too typical story for us now, but in the 90s it was like WHOA. Honestly, this show is all too much like Sailor Moon but with a twist. Yohko just wants to be a normal girl and find a handsome boyfriend but she has to fight these damned demons that keep popping up every episode. Not to mention naked bodies everywhere.

From an historical and animation standpoint, it was interesting to watch because of just how much the show evolved by the final episode. For example in the first episode, Yohko’s mom is very liberal and urges her 16 year old daughter to have sex. Even to the point of throwing some condoms in her direction. In contrast to the last episode, where Yohko’s mom is dressed more conservatively and ARA ARA like. But this doesn’t mean that they toned down the T&A. There is a lot of nipple and naked bodies during transformation scenes. There is also a good amount of panty shots in fights too. The animation also is so different by the end. If I could split the episodes up I’d put 1,2 and 3 in a group and 5, and 6 in a group. 4 is just a music video and not really an episodes. In 1,2 and 3, Yohko is drawn to look more older and mature, but by the last two episodes she seems to be looking a lot more younger despite advancing a year in high school.

My favorite episodes were 5 and 6 but not just for the more familiar animation designs but the stories in these two were more solid and overall interesting to watch. The first three episodes just seemed too humorous. I could take these last two a little more seriously. The episodes themselves are all pretty much stand alone, but you should at least watch the first one first.

Missing these kinds of character designs. I’d watch CODE-E but I hear it’s garbage…

My favorite characters were actually the side characters. Yohko is okay but just the typical boy crazy lead. Also, now that I think about it, where the hell did she suddenly learn how to fight so well? Yohko’s grand mom is just awesome and grumpy. Azusa-chan is just the typical clusmy sidekick girl who can’t fight well, but she does chores and is more “loli” I guess? Yohko’s classmate just made me miss the old 90s character designs and glasses girls.

As a kid growing up in the 90s, I always wanted to see Yohko. The ADV previews just made it seem like it was worth watching. I mean, just look at the character designs. For the time, I thought they looked so COOL. Yohko’s sword is just kick ass looking as far as swords in anime go. There is even this scene in episode 3 where she stabs an opponent, but has something about to hit her in the back. Apparently the hilt can detach and be used as an axe as well. That was just freaking awesome scene I thought.

Ultimately, a fine watch. Pretty average by today’s standards, but at the time when it was released in the U.S it was such a big deal. No one had see anything like this before. Devil Hunter Yohko probably was a lot of people’s first anime. Old timers who have never seen this show might nostalgia from it, but newcomers to anime in the past 5 years probably won’t appreciate the charm and just plain ridiculousness of the show.

Is CLAMP back from the dead? I believe so

There is no way I like this girl!
You got it all wrong!

OMG. The character interactions between Kobato and Fujimoto have been so cute so far. I can’t help but remember my days of watching Cardcaptor Sakura in November 2004. I’m rather disappointed that I didn’t have much to say about it then. Regardless, I loved it and found it a solid show. I loved the character interactions and among my favorites were those between Sakura and Shaoran. It is just cute how Shaoran starts out so combative towards Sakura thinking nothing of her. She is only competition for him. At school he’s always degrading Sakura and making fun of her. But by the end of the series they get together in one of my favorite scenes in anime.

Absolutely cute.

CLAMP should really just disband and do character designs or whatever they’ve been doing lately with their involvement with Code Geass and other anime. CLAMP used to make some awesome stuff.

I said that back in May 2008 with my disgusted reactions to watching Tsubasa Chronicles. This has changed watching Kobato. I can’t help but feel nostalgia watching Kobato. Honestly, it is the first CLAMP work since CCS that I’ve really taken a liking to. Chobits was decent and I absolutely hated Tsubasa Chronicles which was in part due to Bee Train producing it.

Regardless, I just couldn’t like the meek and humble Shaoran. He was horrible. Sakura was flat. What was with those two guys, and the talking Mokona…? Don’t get me started. Just read my rants about the show if you’re interested.

Watching Kobato and Fujimoto interact I’m remind of Sakura and Shaoran. Sure they don’t fight and argue as much as those kids, but they’re older. Still it’s absolutely cute! Kobato is just this amazingly cheerful and a stylish dresser while Fujimoto is this Suzaku Kurugi clone with long hair and glasses. Don’t be fooled because he is just as aloof and female lead degrading as Shaoran. I can’t wait to see the romance kick into gear and the H doujins between these two. These two are the pair I wanted to see in Tsubasa Chronicles but didn’t.

CLAMP brought the girl in me out 5+ years ago with stuff like Rayearth, and Cardcaptor Sakura. During the times characters got together, I couldn’t help but KYAA over and over while watching such shows. It was cute then and it’s cute now with Kobato. I am happy that I don’t have to degrade CLAMP anymore. Now get to finishing X already! …please.