Desu ex Machina

The zettai ryouiki is the widely accepted terminology to describe the slit of visible skin between a girl’s miniskirt and her thighhighs. The phrase means “absolute territory” in Japanese, and its usage is an homage to the Eva units in Neon Genesis Evangelion (DarkMirage, 2006). Very common in tsundere-type characters, the zettai ryouiki is a popular, increasingly present aspect of character design in modern anime. It combines the elegance of thighhigh stockings with the raciness of the short skirt, and it’s one of the only instances (well, outside of nudity) people get to see the top of thighhighs. Interestingly, the attractiveness of the zettai ryouiki generally increases as the slit becomes narrower, one of the only instances when less skin revealed is preferred. All of these attributes and many more add to the mystique of the zettai ryouiki.

This post will soon contain math. Enjoy it while you still can.

Because internet and anime are both serious business, there has been tons of discussion about zettai ryouiki. Zettai ryouiki can’t just get thinner and thinner without any kind of rhyme or rhythm, there has to be ORDER to the madness! Some of my more experienced readers are already smugly smiling, knowing what is coming up next. Yes. 4 : 1: 2.5 with 4 being the length of the skirt, 1 being the zettai ryouiki, and 2.5 being the length of the sock above the knee. Junkies will also not that this ratio is rarely found precisely in nature, because it would be so moe that the world would explode. I, however, attribute its rarity because it’s kinda bullshit. In my epic search for zettai ryouiki and measuring everything, I have seldom found zettai ryouiki even close to the prescribed ratio. However, I have found something else interesting that is much more prevalent. So here I offer my alternative zettai ryouiki ratio, of which the old 4:1:2.5 ratio is actually included. I do not claim that this is the optimum zettai ryouiki, but it is the property found in the most zettai ryouiki. My conjecture is that the ratio of the distance from the top of the skirt to the beginning of the sock to the distance from the bottom of the skirt to the beginning of the knee is usually around 1.618, the golden ratio, but it can get as low as 1.4. As seen in the image on the right, the green line represents to zettai ryouiki itself. The orange line divided by the blue line should yield a number close to 1.618, which it does. 291/180=1.61667

The commonly accepted optimum ratio of zettai ryouiki, 4:1:2.5 serves as the lower bound of this new rule. The length of the skirt is 4 times the zettai ryouiki, so the numerator is 4x+x = 5x, while the thighhigh above the knee is 2.5x, so the denominator is 2.5x+x=3.5x. The ratio of the two is thus 5:3.5= 1.428, close enough. Of the several images I have measured, 90% of aesthetic images have zettai ryouiki within this range, with the distribution skewing in favor of the upper bound.

Note how my conjecture does not address the actual size of the zettai ryouiki itself. The ratio is determined instead by the length of the skirt and sock. Because many different artists draw differently, a “universal” rule for zettai ryouiki is perhaps impossible. My conjecture, however, is much more general and prevalent. It also shows how I probably need another hobby. Lets see some more examples.

108:74=1.459 Most zettai ryouiki ratios I have found lie between 1.4 and 1.62, about the ratios defined by the "optimum" zettai ryouiki of 4:1:2.5 and the golden ratio.

Let’s take another look at Louise’s lower body. Crappy zettai ryouiki turn out ratios that are well outside the range. Note.

181:100 = 1.81, too much. Note how the slit is way too wide and how the skirt and sock just don't look right.

Obviously, this is far from perfect. There has to be something to govern the zettai ryouiki slit itself, as it’s quite possible to have a terrible looking zettai ryouiki but a perfect ratio. The more obvious factor, however, is measuring accuracy. Are you supposed to measure from the inner thigh? The outer thigh? The middle? And when characters are sitting down it’s a nightmare to guess how long the skirt is supposed to be. The location when the knee is also questionable, because it’s tempting to measure from the bend in the knee when you really should measure a hair above it, at the knee’s “start”. Look at the second picture of Louise, if I measured from the  “start” of the knee, the ratio would be even worse.

Now I’m off to my underground laboratory to study more of the mystical properties of the zettai ryouiki. Your comments about my ground-breaking research is much appreciated. Please place all Nobel Prizes for me on that table over there.

So there ends the most hyped show in the preseason.

Nothing special. K-ON! really seemed to limp into the finishing gate. From how great K-ON started, it really seemed to run everything that made it enjoyable into the ground. The series literally ran out of gas and stuttered. The ending was pretty uneventful, if not anticlimactic. Regardless, this “bonus episode” was pretty decent. K-ON would have been more successful if more episodes were just paced like this instead of trying to moe overload us to death. It’s not like a peerless distinguished figure, but it’s an improvement from the end of the show. Overall, K-ON! needed some more… music and less stupid crap.

Michael Jackson died today, unfortunately. However, this tragedy has retroactively unintentionally made this video the most awesome Michael Jackson tribute ever.

¹/₂ (out of 4)

Review: Eden of the East

Though not exactly a foray into the unknown, Eden of the East does just enough to make it unique and memorable. Combined with near perfect technical execution, Eden of the East is a solid anime.

I was already thoroughly impressed with Eden of the East after about five minutes into the first episode. There is this cool edgy feel to it as soon as you start watching. The series begins in Washington D.C. when Morimi Saki (cv. Hayami Saori) meets a stark naked Takizawa Akira (cv. Kimura Ryohei). The first thing that really stood out was the conspicuous lack of engrish. Production I.G. seemed to have the good sense to cast people who actually speak English for the American background characters. While this takes away from the hilarity factor, it adds a sense of realism to the series. Contrary to shows like Baccano! where everyone speaks Japanese despite being 1920’s Americans in New York, the distinctive language barrier adds a sense of internationalism.

It is quickly revealed that Akira has somehow erased all his memories, and that he is in possession of a cell phone that is charged with 8.2 billion yen (around 86 million dollars) and the world’s best concierge service. Akira is a complete enigma, from the whereabouts of his phone to his nudity and character. Following an quick adventure around Washington, Akira and Saki head back to Japan together, where the mystery of the series is just beginning to unravel: apparently, Japan has recently been hit with ten cruise missiles but no one can account for them. Even more strangely, there were no casualties because all the civilians were mysteriously evacuated beforehand. Akira’s unknown past, the strange phone, and the reason for all this chaos are just a bit of what Eden has to offer.

Despite being a short 11 episodes, Eden is paced extremely well, leaving the viewer excited for what’s going to happen next, but not drawing a plot over too many episodes. Characters are in abundance and each character, even relatively minor ones, have distinctive personalities and objectives. A highlight of East of Eden is the very earthy, intriguing yet realistic relationship between the two protagonists: Saki and Akira. Akira is off on his own adventures and investigating the reason and mysteries behind the other wielders of that magical phone. While Saki’s curiosity of the origin of this mysterious boy leads to an intresting plot structure of Akira investigating other people like him, and Saki investigating Akira. The other Selecao (people with money phones) each have different agendas and wildly different personalities, including a hedonistic corrupt detective and a sadistic serial killer.

Thematically, Eden is very strong. This anime addresses concepts like terrorism or security in a manner that is easily related to by today’s society. Feelings of duty, service, and power are all addressed on several levels. The anime centers around a key phrase known as noblesse oblige, the concept that with great power and prestige come even greater responsibilities. The actions and demeanor of various Selecao provide very fruitful deep analysis into many meanings, variants, and interpretations of the concept.

Eden of the East often contains striking imagery to reinforce thematic or plot elements

As said earlier, Eden of the East is nearly perfect technically. The background art and animation looks superb. English rock band Oasis provides the music for the opening theme with their single Falling Down. Noel Gallagher’s striking vocals fit perfectly with an incredibly unique and eyecatching opening sequence that makes the OP the iconic feature of the series. school food punishment’s ending theme is also very good. While character design is not the most appealing thing in the world, its subdued, almost bland nature almost seems to fit the series.

In conclusion, Eden of the East is exactly what it brands itself as, an action mystery thriller with bits of humor thrown in and sci-fi elements. Not much is actually resolved at the end of the series and the last episode will leave you with tons of questions unanswered. Movie sequels have already been announced. It’s not exactly groundbreaking or genre-defining, but it’s exactly what it bills itself as.

On another note, I’ve pretty much gotten the full hang of Japanese mahjong now. It’s really similar to the kind I’ve been playing all my life, with just some different strats. Tenhou is the name of the client/site I use. It’s simple because you don’t need an account or anything. The hardest part of it to use is that it’s completely in Japanese, but remembering a few kana isn’t going to kill me.
Now excuse me as I patiently wait for Saki 12.

Around 11 hours from the time this post is completed, Eden of the East concludes (at 11 episodes instead of the usual 12 or 13). This officially starts the cascade of shows ending, signaling the bloody and fiery death of the season and immaculate rebirth into a new season. At least that’s how I imagine it.

So how does the new season look? Here’s a snapshot at what I’m looking at for the next season. Before any whining starts, no I have not seen Spice and Wolf. Stop asking.

Can’t Wait

Definitely watching CANAAN. It just looks plain cool. I share this mindset with just about everyone on the planet. It’s a Type-Moon adapati0n, the promo art looks cool, and Tanaka Rie is in it. I’ve actually played 428, the game CANAAN is based off of, before, albeit very fleetingly and in Japanese. The game, from what I could grasp from about five minutes, has a very unique mode of storytelling. Multiple storylines happen at the same time, and you kinda switch between them. I’m pretty excited to see how the anime is going to reflect this unique feature of the game. There are detectives and scientists and kidnappers and all that cool stuff, so knock yourself out, action junkies. CANAAN is probably going to turn out to be that one action show per season that everyone watches and talks about. Sorta like Eden of the East.

CANAAN is serious business. Also, I can tell that Type-moon art from a million miles away

The show I am looking forward to the most this season is undoubtedly Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. It was a few months ago that I read on ANN that the third season had been greenlit. If I recall correctly, an epic fistpump was involved. In my opinion – no fuck that. This is fact. Sidesplittingly funny and surprisingly intelligent, the Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei franchise is comedy anime at its absolute finest. The show and its premise simply does not get old. Kohji Kumeta does such a great job with the manga, while SHAFT and Akiyuki Shinbo create an absolutely superb animated product. Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is what everyone who loves comedy should watch- it’s a near perfect balance of dark humor, pure fun, and anime references, all put together with near flawless technical execution. The art is original, unique, and eyecatching. If you’ve seen Shinbo’s other works you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Personally I will be giving Taishou Yakyuu Musume a watch. The story takes place in 1925 and is centered around two girls who want to create a baseball team. It sounds kinda like K-ON! with baseball. Hey, I like girls and I like baseball. Why not. The cast is loaded and J.C. Staff is capable of pulling this one off. Watch out for this show this season.

Maybe…

As for the maybies, I might try out Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 if there’s lots of talk about it. The premise seems quite unintresting (Japan has earthquakes woo) but who knows. Aoi Hana is made by J.C. Staff, which is the only reason I’m even considering it. Lovey drama shoujo suki suki rabu is what I’m expecting. Doesn’t mean it can’t be good, it means it would have to be extra good to get me to care. Umineko no Naku Koro Ni will be watched on a short leash. “But kevo! You loved Higurashi!” Aha! That’s the trap there. The difference between Umineko and Higurashi is not simply the difference between Kanon and Clannad.Umineko is turning out to be a totally different breed than Higurashi. It probably won’t be certifiably bad, but holding Umineko to expectations from Higurashi will probably leave you dissapointed. I don’t like how Umineko looks, but I’ll swallow these words right here if I enjoy the first few episodes.

Finally, I’ve heard some talk about Umi Monogatari. The anime looks like massive amounts of dRaHmAh and the trailer looked unimpressive. But I’ll probably give this anime a watch for voice actors and discussion and do a quick drop if I’m not impressed. In order to instill maximum confusion to us, however, there is an anime similarly named Bakemonogatari, which looks awesome. I didn’t put it in the definitely watching section because I wanted to instill some suspense and mystery into the blog post. Moreso that I forgot before and when I remembered I already thought of the neat segue from Umi Monogatari. Akiyuki Shinbo is making this one again, so that’s already enough reason to watch the anime. From what I’ve seen, the character design and art look great. This anime will be hyped regardless so I might as well jump in and see what it’s all about.

Looks like a pretty solid season. Definitely better than last summer… *shudder*

Before this overview of the latest episode of K-ON!, I would like to share some research I came up across earlier in the show.

Electric Guitar: ¥378,000 ($3,765.19)
Electric Bass: ¥262,500 ($2,614.71)
Drumset: ¥237,000 ($2,360.87)
Keyboard: ¥246,750 ($2,458.00)

Grand total: ¥1,124,250 ($11,200.72)

Cool light music club.

Episode 11 thankfully returns to being funny. I think overall, the major flaw with K-ON! is that it’s trying to be something else than a fun, moe comedy show with music. Quite honestly, I expected more music from this show. So in this episode we find out that Yui has neglected to maintain her $3,700 Gibson Les Paul Sunburst and the gang goes to a music store to get it cleaned up, restrung, and whatever else they do to guitars that you can buy a used car with.

An interesting thought popped up in my head when Mio mentioned her left-handedness and how she feels uncomfortable around myriad right-handed instruments. Yeah, they’re still exploiting Mio’s several weaknesses for the sake of moe. No, jokes never get old because Kyoto Animation is exempt from all rules of anime. Anyway, Mio should totally play a right-handed guitar upside down with the strings flipped, just like Jimi Hendrix. I mean, lets be honest: Jimi Hendrix is the one person you were instantly reminded of when you first saw Mio, right? Jimi’s unique string placement is what made his music sound so unique. That and wagonloads of LSD.

Guess what? Mio shows up in this episode. Who woulda thunk it.

So yeah then drama happens and we explore the friendship between Ritsu and Mio. Except… we don’t really that much. K-ON! probably would have been better off just showing us more pantyshots of Mio, but I commend them for trying to explore thier characters. I’m looking foward to the conclusion and maybe an OVA or another season in the future or something.

Next time on kevo’s blog, I’ll do a last second preview of the upcoming season.

I’m a few days late because I’ve had some other things to do but here’s a recap of Saki 10.

Saki has set the precedent that all mahjong anime should now follow: yuri up the hizzy

Overall, the episode was strong, with more epic mahjong. Amae finally shows up and she’s extremely cute. Fujita is cool, too. The anime is preceding extremly quickly compared to the manga, so I’m curious of what will happen when the anime overtakes. For now, I’m just content with the action packed regional tournament and awesome locked mahjong chamber rooms. Because mahjong is serious fucking business.

EYELIGHTNING

You would think that Japan, being the land of milk and panties, would get all the anime merchandise in the world, would get the earliest releases of albums and DVDs and everything. Sometimes they are the only people who get it. I mean, they had a Pokemon Green! Stateside, we had to wait like three extra months to suffer from Phantom Hourglass (hehe just playing, PH was pretty fun). To me, this is kind of weird, I mean, you know that we get Paul Blart: Mall Cop on DVD before Europe and Asia. Fuck volumes of the Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei manga, or the Aria the Origination box set. We get to watch Kevin James on a segway.

But why Hong Kong of all places? Does being a special administrative district of The People’s Republic of China entitle it to the Hayate No Gotoku!! ED 1 three days before it’s released in Japan? I bet Geneon thought that an anime CD would sell well in the metropolitan area that has the most skyscrapers in the world. Of course, I’m just reading off the Wikipedia page. Too bad it doesn’t matter, because the internet and bittorent has no boundaries. So lemme give a shoutout to all my Hong Kong brethern for supplying me with crap days in advance. Because waiting until it’s released somewhere I can buy would imply that I’m going to… buy it. I haven’t paid for music since Now 5 xD.

Oh right why don’t I just drop this here since I’ve been talking about it. I anticipated this so much. The lack of a B-side is a downer, because the other versions of the song arn’t that good.

ハヤテのごとく！！ ED 「本日、満開ワタシ色！」

Have fun.

So the highly anticipated weekly episode of K-ON! aired, and now I finally can somewhat sympathise with the haters. I loved K-ON when the first few episodes came out. It was funny and light hearted and had great music. The moe levels were through the roof and thus the show was fun to watch. However, as episodes kept coming, it was becoming more apparent that Kyoto Animation were not actaully… writing anything for the show and just giving Mio tons of screentime to satisfy the right hand of the army of watchers (though might I suggest trying the left hand once in a while, too). K-ON! was essentially becoming the pop idol who can’t sing but becomes really popular because she constantly shows off her body on stage.

Azusa coming into the show thus seemed like a godsend, but she’s not really adding anything new to the show. She is supposed to be the factor controlling the girls and pushing them to work harder and quit fooling around. Guess what? Mio does that already. Speaking of duplicates, we get another training camp beach episode. Enough with the tl;dr, let’s take a look.

K-ON! 10 was the first episode of K-ON! to actually bore me. K-ON! was funny and moe overload at first, then it became less funny and more generically moe overload, and here in episode 10 it is neither.

The first training camp episode was much better. Suwa-chan shows up at the end but doesn’t do anything. Mio isn’t moe, Ritsu isn’t moe, Azusa isn’t moe, no one is moe in this episode.

We get a slice of character development, as Azusa and Yui develop some mUtUaL rEsPeCt, but that’s not very much for 22 episodes. K-ON! is winding down towards the end and seems to be hobbling into the homestrech this season. It would be awfully upsetting to me if the most anticipated show before this season began ends up ultimately… sucking. Come on, Kyoto Animation, you can do better.

You want to watch anime to have fun. Unless the ending theme happens to feature Katsura Hinagiku, no matter what you don’t want to watch an episode of anime only to pine for it to end. But recently that’s what I’ve been feeling the past few episodes of Basquash!. But this will not be a post ripping this anime, instead, let’s talk about this anime in general.

For an anime about giant mechs playing basketball, this anime isn’t getting too much talk or popularity. This surprises me, but I was the same person who expected something out of a certain anime last season involving soda cans, so my thought process concerning anime premises are probably not normal. I expected an anime about real streetball style basketball, with you know… a hoop and awesome basketball moves that happen to involve mechs. I basically expected a sports anime. Wrong. Basquash! is mecha first, basketball second. That is, if you can even call it basketball. Most of the “basketball” in the first few episodes of Basquach is simply defined as “having a basketball in the scene”. If you were expecting awesome ballin’ moves straight away like I was, I’m afraid you will be disappointed, yo!

But when I really though about it, I realized that that was the only real problem I had with the anime: it wasn’t what I thought it would be. So? It was still entertaining. I’m not the biggest fan of CG in the world but whatever. There are robots doing cool things, and I don’t really mind that either. When watching this show without any premonitions in you head, Basquash! is nice and honest, you know exactly what you are getting: robots. The art is superb, specifically the backgrounds. Earthdash is a perfectly immersive, atmospheric backdrop for the show. Characters in the show are visually distinct and every character, mech, or object in Basquash! looks alive. Characters are visually intresting, and the girls seem all designed to each fit a specific fetishimal niche. Is that a word? Fetishimal? Whatever, it is now. For example, Miyuki is a short, black girl with large breasts while Sela is a tall slender blonde beauty that is much more rationally endowed. They also threw in a loli just for kicks because all the anime are doing it (looking at you, Gundam 00). Regardless, if you watch Basquash! for the girls, you are seriously doing it wrong.

Obviously, this anime is not without faults. The main bone I have to pick is that the main character, Dan, is mind-numbingly retarded. Is that a part of the mecha anime archetype? Anime involving robots must have main characters who are either ridiculously stupid (Kamina), have no idea what they are doing (Gene Starwind), or both (Ikari Shinji)? Other elements of the plot, such as Dan’s hatred for Bigfoot basketball stemming from an accident his sister got into, are rather dry and unoriginal. The pacing of the anime is fine, and the music fits the anime well. Many scenes come off as incredibly cheesy or absurd. Kugumiya Rie seems stangely miscasted as Flora Skybloom, but I’ll live.

Overall, I’m planning on finishing Basquash. It didn’t turn out to be the anime I imagined it would be, but at least it is turning out to be a decent anime. The lesson here? Fuck expectations. If an anime is entertaining, go for it.

Oh and the second ending theme for Hayate no Gotoku!! is not out until the 10th. *rage*