Avant-garde artist/composer. I prefer reading than watching films and you probably bore me.
I'm running the japanese/brazilian label ULTRA GASH RECORDS, check if you're interested in avant-garde, industrial, musique concrète/electroacoustic, no wave, electronica, noise, jazz/prog, weird black/extreme metal/grind, techno, neofolk/classical, or anything obscure musically. Follow it on bandcamp, instagram, facebook etc. I'm behind the long-time experimental project ESMECTATONS, also Yutokaiomaru and other groups. You can find some albums on bandcamp, check the label hyperlink above in this text.
ULTRA GASH RECORDS is currently translating classic obscure manga/GEKIGA's guide
"MANGAZOMBIE"
FOR THE FIRST TIME IN ENGLISH (originally published only in japanese in the 90s)
The project is totally DIY but the book will be physically released and I'm funding it myself. To support me with this and other possible future projects buy some of the merch or digital albums from the label. As you can see I work with many japanese artists and have a professional translator helping out, but I'm also studying japanese myself to keep bringing japanese rare media to the rest of the world.
I am also here: LETTERBOXD LASTFM
Don't have a goodreads yet although spent much of my life reading. But just for the record, top 3 writers that comes to mind right now: Roberto Bolaño, Peter Sotos and Osamu Dazai.
Themes I'm interested includes: cruelty, war, abuse, depression, dementia, surrealism, psychology, machines of any kind, samurai period, kinbaku/shibari, youkai, old cyberpunk/sci-fi, space, anything weird and grotesque (obviously including EROGURO and a variety of japanese cinema/literature from Mishima to pinku violence)... I have a love/hate relationship with philosophy, but yeah, it qualifies certainly as an interest. I usually hate sports but it works pretty good on anime. I also like WMT, slice-of-life and autistic series. I can pretty much appreciate maho shoujo and awful puppet/monster shit like tokusatsu/supersentai/kaiju or other silly stuff - I have a humour for nonsense and awful productions. But it all depends on my mood and if I'm watching something while doing anything else or really paying attention at the moment. Anyway, I'm into Seinfeld, that alone might explain a lot about my personality. And of course, I love japanese cinema.
Mostly can't stand modern anime bullshit and most of the people into it annoys me, sorry. If you're also into mecha and oldschool VHS anime OVAs, I'd reccomend to check old european comics, starting with 2000ad titles like Strontium Dog and ABC Warriors, then writers such as Enki Bilal, and of course Jodorowsky etc, one of the definitely best animes of all time, VOTOMS, is pretty pretty similar to what you will find plotwise from years before in Rogue Trooper, for example.
Monad, portrayed by Simon Bisley - Pat Mills' ABC WARRIORS
"I'm filthy. Lice gnaw me. Swine, when they gaze upon me, vomit. Scabs and scars of leprosy have scaled off my skin, which exudes a yellowish pus. I know not the waters of rivers nor the dew from the clouds. From my nape, as from a dunghill, an enormous toadstool with umbelliferous peduncles is growing. Seated upon a shapeless throne I have not stirred hand nor foot for four centuries. My toes have taken root in the soil and have grown up around my belly in a kind of lush growth, neither plant nor flesh, where dwell vile parasites. Nevertheless my heart is beating. Yet how could it beat if the rottenness and the reek of my cadaver (I dare not say my body) did not abundantly nourish it?"
- Lautréamont, Songs of Maldoror.
That sounds promising with the new one specializing in this kind of thing. My download hasn't finished yet, but I saw enough numbers to know there is more than 500. At least some of them are in artist-specific folders, but I get the feeling those are old images. Probably... would need to rummage through and copy and paste the best ones into artist-specific folders. From what you said last time, I fear that Yoshimi Noboru, for example, has images in a large batch with other artists, but maybe it's not that bad. But there aren't any kanji or anything that would indicate which manga they're from? Guess I'll see when the download is done.
Did Takeo dump hundreds of images in one folder without organization? Although tedious, it probably wouldn't be that hard to figure out what the kanji is from using search engines (aside from some of them being easy to recognize). A search of the kanji would probably make it easy to narrow down the mangaka at least. Since there are roughly... 30 in the book? Oh, I guess the other thing is... who provided the scans or images to Takeo? I think he was wanting the source to be credited. So that might be part of the kanji there?
It's admittedly a daunting book for first-time publishing, given that it's a translation and is fairly ambitious because it appears to be a complete overhaul of the image component of the book. Given the situation in Brazil atm, I think the deadline being pushed back a bit is very understandable.
I actually don't remember. Do you have MZ updates somewhere? I agree, that's a good idea to show some of the images while going through them. lol, I get the feeling there are some much more disturbing ones unearthed since the last folder of images. :P
Oh, wow. That's a lot. No, I've overlooked the news regarding weather and the like. Looks really terrible from the images alone. Sorry to hear about the setbacks, and I hope it wasn't too bad in your area. If the original duo were trustworthy, then I imagine whoever they would find for you they would be able to vouch for. Keep me posted, and let me know if you need help sifting through the images.
Thanks! I saw your letterboxd profile and loved your taste in cinema, pretty similar to mine. I read your 'Jodorowsky's Dune' and I was very curious about what you think about his comics. I recently read 'Juan Solo' and thought it was a great story, even though I prefer him writing sci-fi.
I was also looking at your manga list and saw that there are some manga that I can't find online. Do you read them on physical media?
And yeah, MAGMA is the goat.
Selection wise, I imagine it's still difficult, but that's great that the images are starting to pour in. I'm curious what will turn up for some of the really obscure ones, like some of the rental ones.
Seems like these older mech series almost always have sections where everything drops off in quality, whether it's writing, pacing, or whatever. Still wish there could be a good remake of Dunbine. That series had a lot of problems, and Tomino was often so sloppy and aimless with the writing of his series.
Honestly, it must be a lot easier reading this with images. I've seen basically all of the old images, but it's hard to pair them to the artist by memory without them being in the book. Looking forward to seeing the new images and where they're placed.
I might try Alps. That sounds like a decent concept. The cinematography, from what I remember of the movies I saw, was fine, but he definitely doesn't seem like a director who makes films you specifically watch for that purpose. Have you seen Twentynine Palms or any of that "New French Extremity" or whatever the hell they call it? I swear, every time I look this stuff up, the name for it changes, lmao. Most of it is quite bad/pretentious.
So far it's good. I saw a comparison to Dagram saying that Layzner was more typical of the mech genre with its story and high amount of action scenes (whereas Dagram is more focused on politics and story; though I wish they didn't put that heart on the boy's shirt, LMAO). The story is simple but delivered well so far, even if I'm not real keen on this kind of plot with aliens because it gives me bad flashbacks to The Day the Earth Stood Still but better. Glad to see Takahashi got a decent budget to work with because it has some stylish cuts, pretty creative edits, regular foreground, tracking shots, dynamic fight scenes, etc. I'm sure I'll have issues with the pacing as I almost always have with anything over 26 episodes. Mech series in particular rarely benefit from more than that because what we usually get toy advertisements.
Ah, yeah, "in-between text" placement is good for images that either aren't overly strong or are highly contextual or mostly of significance in relation to discussions about the author. That's likely a good choice for a decent chunk of them. That's what I'd suggest doing for gag artists since they're usually more notable for the humor and situation, often acting as a punchline in the best images; the art itself tends to be secondary. Glad to hear it's underway with the layout and such.
I see he's the Dogtooth director, which I hate, lol... I actually liked Lobster, surprisingly. For some reason, I could have sworn those were made by two different directors. I see he's made a bunch more films, but I've yet to try them. The synopsis for Poor Things doesn't sound appealing to me (and when it comes to political views/how to be interpreted, even the brief synopsis is lacking subtlety! :P), but I might try it if the cinematography is good. I'd probably try something else by him for now, but I'm not sure what.
Okay, sounds promising. Seems it will be a lot different than the original when it comes to the images. Let's say it's around 200 pages of text (depends on font so not sure). How many image pages are you predicting, since I know some pages will have multiple images, with specific images maybe getting their own page.
Oh, I've listened to Polachek before. Will try it again later. Not sure what I think.
Yeah, it is almost finished. Most of the remaining stuff I had inquired about didn't need changes. I'll probably send something to Lorenzo tomorrow or the day after if all goes smoothly. You ever figure anything out on images, though?
Sometimes I wonder if I'm too harsh on the original VHD because that followup is one of Kawajiri's best when it comes to visuals, direction, well-paced action, etc. Pretty sure it's probably better than Ninja Scroll. I think I gave it a 7/10 too, but I could see upping it with another watch. Which I'll probably do because it seems like I'm mostly watching boring or slowish stuff lately. I'll take this opportunity to shill Toki no Tabibito since I recall Kawajiri had some great key animation scenes in that film, and it's quite interesting as a suspenseful action piece and sci-fi/time travel film. The time police angle is the most interesting way to explore time travel, I think; aside from historical revisionism akin to phantom time theory or some such. Kawajiri was severely underrated as an animator. It's kind of depressing that he's just storyboarding now instead of directing. Don't get me wrong, because he's fantastic at storyboarding, but a lot of what he ends up working on isn't as exciting as what he directed over a decade ago.
I've been hearing mixed opinions on the new Miyazaki. Looked pretty good to me from the trailer, but I guess I shouldn't expect much. Only other thing I can think of that we'll get in theaters is maybe Shinkai, but I'm not sure if you care about that after the three-legged chair thing, lmao! Studio Ponoc is one to look out for as well, though a bit of a Ghibli knock off. They've at least put out good visual experiences. The "invisible man" short they had was impressive in terms of animation!
Well, I don't know much about the western comics you're referencing, but Ichijo was showing me some studio was doing fan animations of Berserk and some other titles, and they actually looked fairly good from the PV. Makes me wonder if that would be a good avenue for what you're talking about because I can't see any big studio doing that. Too risky, especially seeing as that's an older and not too well-known title now.
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an 3K Completed Anime dang
It's admittedly a daunting book for first-time publishing, given that it's a translation and is fairly ambitious because it appears to be a complete overhaul of the image component of the book. Given the situation in Brazil atm, I think the deadline being pushed back a bit is very understandable.
I actually don't remember. Do you have MZ updates somewhere? I agree, that's a good idea to show some of the images while going through them. lol, I get the feeling there are some much more disturbing ones unearthed since the last folder of images. :P
I was also looking at your manga list and saw that there are some manga that I can't find online. Do you read them on physical media?
And yeah, MAGMA is the goat.
https://myanimelist.net/anime/52367/Isekai_Shikkaku
Honestly, it must be a lot easier reading this with images. I've seen basically all of the old images, but it's hard to pair them to the artist by memory without them being in the book. Looking forward to seeing the new images and where they're placed.
I might try Alps. That sounds like a decent concept. The cinematography, from what I remember of the movies I saw, was fine, but he definitely doesn't seem like a director who makes films you specifically watch for that purpose. Have you seen Twentynine Palms or any of that "New French Extremity" or whatever the hell they call it? I swear, every time I look this stuff up, the name for it changes, lmao. Most of it is quite bad/pretentious.
Ah, yeah, "in-between text" placement is good for images that either aren't overly strong or are highly contextual or mostly of significance in relation to discussions about the author. That's likely a good choice for a decent chunk of them. That's what I'd suggest doing for gag artists since they're usually more notable for the humor and situation, often acting as a punchline in the best images; the art itself tends to be secondary. Glad to hear it's underway with the layout and such.
I see he's the Dogtooth director, which I hate, lol... I actually liked Lobster, surprisingly. For some reason, I could have sworn those were made by two different directors. I see he's made a bunch more films, but I've yet to try them. The synopsis for Poor Things doesn't sound appealing to me (and when it comes to political views/how to be interpreted, even the brief synopsis is lacking subtlety! :P), but I might try it if the cinematography is good. I'd probably try something else by him for now, but I'm not sure what.
Oh, I've listened to Polachek before. Will try it again later. Not sure what I think.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm too harsh on the original VHD because that followup is one of Kawajiri's best when it comes to visuals, direction, well-paced action, etc. Pretty sure it's probably better than Ninja Scroll. I think I gave it a 7/10 too, but I could see upping it with another watch. Which I'll probably do because it seems like I'm mostly watching boring or slowish stuff lately. I'll take this opportunity to shill Toki no Tabibito since I recall Kawajiri had some great key animation scenes in that film, and it's quite interesting as a suspenseful action piece and sci-fi/time travel film. The time police angle is the most interesting way to explore time travel, I think; aside from historical revisionism akin to phantom time theory or some such. Kawajiri was severely underrated as an animator. It's kind of depressing that he's just storyboarding now instead of directing. Don't get me wrong, because he's fantastic at storyboarding, but a lot of what he ends up working on isn't as exciting as what he directed over a decade ago.
I've been hearing mixed opinions on the new Miyazaki. Looked pretty good to me from the trailer, but I guess I shouldn't expect much. Only other thing I can think of that we'll get in theaters is maybe Shinkai, but I'm not sure if you care about that after the three-legged chair thing, lmao! Studio Ponoc is one to look out for as well, though a bit of a Ghibli knock off. They've at least put out good visual experiences. The "invisible man" short they had was impressive in terms of animation!
Well, I don't know much about the western comics you're referencing, but Ichijo was showing me some studio was doing fan animations of Berserk and some other titles, and they actually looked fairly good from the PV. Makes me wonder if that would be a good avenue for what you're talking about because I can't see any big studio doing that. Too risky, especially seeing as that's an older and not too well-known title now.