< Piro >
"nothing amazing, just the norm."
Wednesday - August 30, 2000
[Piro] - 02:20:00 - [link here]
I've been and continue to be influenced by a pretty wide range of 'stuff' - old and new, anime, game, manga and all sorts of other pop culture things, both in the US and Japan. One of my favorite animes right now is FLCL (or "Furi Kuri"), a new OAV series (OAV: Original Animation Video - a term for anime that is marketed directly to consumers, not thru TV or via Movie Theaters) by the celebrated studios of Gainax. Gainax, of course, are the same people who gave us Evangelion (I will never ever forgive them for what they did to Asuka. Never. Her treatment in Eva is totally uncalled for, and it still upsets me to no end - but i digress)
Furi Kuri is... well, it's kind of hard to explain. Gainax is one of those studios that, due to its history of having be started by maniac otakus in the first place, takes a lot of chances and has not qualms about messing with fan's minds. Their work on Kareshi Kanajo no Jijo was a 180 degree turn from eva (a girl's manga story, love, romance, pain, you get the idea - ) - FLCL is like this really weird-ass combination of KareKano (KareKano is the nickname for the series) and Evangelion - some people love it, some hate it. I love it. It has this really quirky nature that appeals to me for some reason (but then I'm kinda off-kilter to start with).
I've taken a real fancy to Ninamori Eri (lesson: Japanese first names usually come second - so Ninamori is her last name. Eri is her first.) - while she doesn't really seem to have much of a part till episode 3 - there's something about her character design and manner that is interesting. I did a drawing of Ninamori and Kanchi (the oddball robot that comes outa Naota's head) that actually came out pretty good.