Courne Supremacy

I like ramen. Ramen is a reminder of the good moments I had at home with my family.

When I was young my grandmother used to take care of me and she would cook ramen. It was Top Ramen, but the noodles were soaked in the salty broth. They were thick, soft, and tasty. When she left for Taiwan, and eventually died, that was the only thing I remembered about her. My dad showed me how to make ramen with ground beef after I went to college. Just dump a pound of ground beef in a pan and use a spatula to dice it up into small pieces. Put some green onions in with it and take a couple of spoonfuls and put it in with the ramen and the stow the rest for later. When we would have hot pot at our house the leftover hodge-podge broth would be dumped into a pot and made into ramen broth the next day. If we had duck for dinner the heart, liver, neck, and left over meat would be used in the ramen pot for lunch. Good times and good eats.

In college, ramen was el cheapo. Sometimes if I was lucky Market 32 would have ramen on sale — ten for a buck. I stocked up. I bought ground beef to be diced up and yeah, sometimes, I would have ramen every night of the week. When you’re in college that’s what you gotta do. I got the ramen to the point where it reminded me of how my grandmother cooked it up. But afte a year of eating the same thing, I found msyelf staring into a bowl of gloppy noodles and thinking to myself, “this tastes like shit.” I overdosed on it and started eating out or finding other things to try and cook with little to moderate success — I would consider myself a terrible cook, even to this day, and yet I cook well enough for myself that I haven’t died from starvation yet.

NorCal has a few good ramen restaurants. There’s Himawari on 2nd Street in San Mateo. Santa Ramen. There’s a place down in Mountain View which I forget the name of. It’s all good.

It really wasn’t until I was watching Galaxy Express 999 that I realized I really miss eating ramen. Hoshino Tetsuro eats it in bowlfuls. Old men that run ramen shops on distant worlds give him as much as he wants because he’s the poster child for youth and ambition and he’s fueled by noodles. Watching that anime made me crave eating the stuff again but I decided if I was going to have ramen, i was going to “age it up” and make it a little more of a fulfilling meal. I tried with modern success — it was still the same old college meal.

Japan is where the real deal is. I’ve had the good stuff there. I dare say even the airport’s ramen was good. I watched the lady at the food stand make it. They don’t get their broth from some little brown powder packet. She had a clear plastic bag of broth. She had a small basket of noodles and dunked it into boiling water. Microwaved the broth packet and put the whole thing together in a bowl. What a brilliant idea. No wonder even that’s better than the shit they pass off as ramen over here. When I got home a friend got me some Sapporo Ichiban ramen. I love the stuff. It’s a step up from Top Ramen, but seriously, when I say step up it’s like paying a dollar compared to a dime. For a poor college student this is as close as you would get to gourmet. I tried to eat the Ichiban ramen but it tasted like a nasty mouthful of salt and that was sad because I loved it so much before I went to Japan. That’s when I started researching how to make my own ramen broth. I wanted to go beyond Top Ramen and Ichiban. Making broth would take anywhere from 20 minutes to 60 hours for Tonkatsu. I’m not ready to invest 60 hours into simmering pork bones. I have yet to try the 20 minute broth, and I would, but then I found this:

It comes from the Marina asian supermarket in Foster City. In one of those packages you get this:

You get a bag of uncooked noodles and a small liquid package (in this case soy sauce). This might be a decent compromise and I’ve had the Miso flavor and soy flavor. It’s a step up from the brick ramen. I bought some naruto when I was there as something else to put in the bowl. I boiled up some eggs and dumped some veggies in to cook up and put the noodles in and this is what came out:

That’s not bad looking if I do say so myself. It wasn’t bad tasting either. It’s not Japan. It’s not Top Ramen. I didn’t have to cook broth for 20 minutes or 60 hours. I’d say, for me, for right now, I’m content with this compromise.

Tags: ramen

I’m by no means any expert at photography, but it’s fun to play with. Shooting small things and toys are cool.

I showed you my lego photo box before. This time I borrowed a macro-lens from a friend. It’s a Minolta lens which fits into the Sony A-mount. It does 28-85mm, but I only cared about the macro mode. There wasn’t any autofocus with the macro, so I just had to focus it myself, but I think the photos came out pretty well. Here’s a look at my setup — it’s the same as last time — a lego frame and then white paper for the sides and backdrop. Something that’s not pictured here is an aluminium foil reflector I created out of a piece of comic book bristol board and crumpled foil. Since I’m incredibly lazy the lamp just shines a top down light onto the toy. Alright it’s not really due to laziness. I played around with the light’s orientation and I didn’t like any of the cast shadows. I wanted the shadows to be right under the toy and if I did that I needed to bounce light back up to illuminate the toy further or there would be some hard shadows.  There’s still a lot of post-processing done on my computer to adjust the exposure and the black levels of each photo. I just moved the sliders until I felt happy with it and wham, bam, done.

I wanted it to look overexposed and very white and bright. I like that look a lot.

I’m exercising my Otakuness these days. I’ve got a bunch of new figures I want to purchase and adorn my house with — all of them are K-ON! figures. Alter released these figures of Mio, Yui, and Azusa, and I’ve ordered them. No idea when they’ll come in though since the dates are all further out, but I figure it’ll be like a nice surprise later on.

The setup in picture form:

First up Haruhi. The first image is ‘shopped from three images I took. I’m no expert in photo-manipulation, which puts me on par with everyone else who sucks at photoshopping images.

I recently got the Galaxy Express 999 figures. So here they are again. I tried some different shooting techniques with these figures. The upshot of Maetel and Tetsuro I achieved by laying them down on the “infinite white paper. I then held Tetsuro about level with her and as straight as I could and shot them together. I played with DOF with some of these photos as well and since GE999 is generally pretty (melo)dramatic, I thought it would add a nice touch to the toys.

Symbols for Ladies Chinenesis, Gigantea, and Foetida (just a warning, this image is fakkin’ huge):

No set is complete without Albino Grimby sitting on top of Kasumi.

That concludes my anime toy shoot for the time being.

Tags: albino grimby, Galaxy Express 999, Haruhi Suzumiya, kasumi, maria-sama ga miteru, Photography, sony a200, white box

I’ve been binging on anime since last November or so in my quest to find something new and interesting to watch. I’m bored with most American dramas. I feel that most of them have simply just run themselves into the ground. Do I need to watch season 8 of 24? I think I get the picture. Jack Bauer’s badass, but seriously the story doesn’t really change from season to season. I haven’t felt like going back to watch Battlestar Galactica. It used to be that watching Battlestar was compelling and left me both wanting more and leaving me somewhat breathless. The only barrier of entry for watching that show was the amount of nerves I could muster to continue along on their harrowing journey, but after the boxing episode in Season 3 I felt that the show really ran its course. I haven’t even bothered to sit down and watch season 4 and 4.5.

Anime on the other hand, for better or worse, ends. A series like Death Note is done in 37 episodes. Other shows are done in about 13 or 26 episodes. There’s time to do one-off episodes, learn interesting things about the characters, get some fan service, and complete a story arc — epic or mundane. They’re bit-sized and different and I can finish them and move onto something else without having to be dragged through the muck. This obviously means I avoid shows like Naruto and Inyuasha. I don’t have any interest in those — the only time I saw Inyuasha was when I had Adult Swim turned on from 11 pm to 5 am during my college years. I find myself interested in the Shinto view of the world after watching things like Kamichu! which is a story that I don’t think American audiences would get.

I figure, in the very least (and I mean very least) watching anime is a way to get new ideas in my head and to find new things that I otherwise wouldn’t get watching dramas on the big networks and cable. So here’s a list of the anime I’ve been watching this month:

Kino’s Journey. I own this one and I busted it out again and watched the first two discs. It’s only 13 episodes long. It was the anime that pointed me in the direction of Galaxy Express 999, probably one of my favorite anime series — I know I said I avoid along anime series, but this one, for me, was worth it. Kino’s Journey itself isn’t bad. It’s fairy-tale like. I think some people equate it to the Little Prince, which I read after watching Kino’s Journey as well. As for me, personally, Kino’s Journey inspired my short-lived attempt to write serialized fiction on this website called “Tales of a Mechanical Bird.”

Black Lagoon Second Barage. I’ve seen the first season of this before. My brother described it to me as an animated American action film. Sure enough it’s got a lot of gunfights, car chases, mobsters, criminals, and unscrupulous people duking it out for bounties and other illicit activities, but it’s damn enjoyable. The second series continues Remy, Rock, Dutch, and Benny’s adventures in Ranpour. It contains a bunch of mini-arcs about crazy Romanian killing kiddies to Hotel Moscow’s take down of the Yakuza in Tokyo. Lots of shoot outs and apparently a hefty dose of existentialism. I was watching for the explosions and only later did I read on wikipedia that there’s a thread of existentialist conversations and ideas that run throughout the series.

Kamichu! I really liked this one. The art style is very Studio Ghibli. All of the backgrounds are lushly painted and the animation is superb. It takes place in a small town near Hiroshima in the 1980s. It’s about a girl who finds out — out of the blue, mind you — that she’s a Shinto god. What’s her power? Why did she become a god? That’s one of the things I love about the series. There’s no origin story. She just comes to school one day, sits down with her friends, and says, “I just found out I’m a god.” The story is a coming of age for her as a Shinto goddess and how she uses her powers to make the lives of the people around her better. My favorite episode still has to be the one where she sleeps under a kotatsu for the entire episode.

Moribito: The Guardian of the Spirit. Moribito is done by Kenji Kamiyama but it’s originally a fantasy novel by Nahoko Uehashi. Kamiyama-san is the guy that also directed/wrote Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, 2nd Gig, and another series I saw recently called Eden of the East. His work is generally high quality animation. The backgrounds, the integrated, toon-shaded CG, and animation all look seamless. The production value is always high and the stories are always detailed and, to me, engaging. Moribito is the story of Balsa, a Kanbal spear-welder, who saves the life of Prince Chagum. She learns that he carries the egg of a water spirit and that his father wants to assassinate his son because he believes its a water demon. Balsa’s a strong female lead. There’s not an inch of moe in this story. The art and story are excellent. The music is beautiful. Moribito also turns out to be an eight volume series of fantasy novels and the anime is just book one. So I was quite happy to hear that both volume 1 and 2 have been translated and released in the US. I picked them up at Amazon.

Kimi ni Todoke (ep. 13-16). I still like Kimi ni Todoke, although now that this horse is out of the gate, I feel that it’s starting to meander a little bit. I still like Sawako as a character and her quest to clear up misunderstandings about her feelings. I don’t like that the show feel like its plodding along now. Episode 16 was mainly a recap/clip-show episode. Boo to that, I say, but all anime series seem to have an episode where they have to let their animation team recuperate before they begin the log slog to the finish line — at least that’s how I see it.

K-ON OAV. A new episode of K-ON with something new. Afternoon Teatime tries to perform live outside of their school for the first time. My problem with the series is that it’s really on 6 epsiodes because the second half of the 12 episode series is a repetition of the first half. So it’s good to see that they’re trying to take the band on the road, make new friends, and move on up. Hopefully season 2 will be good, but seeing that this is a splice-of-life/high school/moe show, I might be asking for too much.

Candy Boy. Cute little show about two sisters that *really* love one another. It’s yuri and sappy at times. There’s the obligatory third-wheel character that’s completely in love with one of the girls. You can tell she’s insane because her hair is white and she gets nose bleeds and does things like trying to take upskirt shots of her love. Honestly, I kinda felt bad for her in the end, since the sisters tended to be together and she was always left out in the cold despite all the “nice” things she does for them. It’s a super quick series to watch — 10 episodes about 10-14 minutes each.

Eden of the East. This is done by Kenji Kamiyama. High production value on this one, and by far, of everything I’ve listed, one of the more interesting finds from this month’s anime binging. It’s full of interesting ideas and it’s got a damn cool look to it. The backgrounds remind me of the ones in 5 Centimeters Per Second — they have that Photoshop painted look to them. The intro is slick looking — I like the way it plays with typography and I’m still a fan of Oasis. The credits have a cool papercraft animation sequence too. The story starts out like the Bourne Identity but goes off in a weird direction. I’ve read criticisms that it’s too much like the Bourne Identity, but let me tell you, if it was more like the Bourne Identity I would have loved the hell out of it. As the show stands, the story, I feel, didn’t build up to a satisfying ending. Here’s the setup: a boy shows up in Washington D.C. with no memory holding a gun and a cellphone with 8.2 billion yen on it. He learns that he’s apart of a game with 12 other contestants. Each of them have been given 10 billion yen and tasked with saving Japan. The winner lives; the losers die. They use their special phones to make orders to something called Juiz and then the money is deducted from their phone. There’s a secondary emphasis on NEETs (people who are Not in Employment, Education, or Training) and their effect on society. Kamiyama definitely has an interest in politics: GITS:SAC 2nd Gig and Moribito both also have political facets to their storytelling as well. There’s also a running gag in Eden about “Johnnies” too. I won’t spoil it. Definitely watch it.

Fruits Basket. Another shojo anime. The twist is that the girl, Taru, lives with members of the Soma family, and they in turn are members of the Chinese zodiac. Yuki is the rat; Kon(?) is the cat, and there’s a third guy but I don’t remember his name, he’s the dog. Nothing really to special about this series. I’ve always heard of it from way back when, and now that it’s on Hulu, while I was on my way to watch more Honey and Clover, I ended up being distracted by Fruits Basket. Since it’s dubbed, it’s decent enough background noise, and it was really when I started watching this anime, I realized, I’ve hit the end of the barrel, I can’t think of anything else to watch.

I’ve done some exploring on my own since they, trying out the pilot episode for various shows. I’ve taken recommendations from friends, and if you’ve got a recommendation, feel free to leave a comment at the end of this post.

Some of the things that I’ve got on my list are Myself;Yourself, Spice and Wolf, and Aoi Bungaku, which I think is a horror anime. Of course I’d like to marathon watch Maria-sama ga Miteru now that I have the DVDs, and since we’ve been playing Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, someone had to ask, “What the hell is Yatterman?” And you can bet that’s now on the agenda too. At least an episode of it.

I could buy a photo whitebox. I think the cheapest is 50 bucks. I saw the DIY on how to make a white box from a cardboard box, but I don’t have a spare one laying around that I’m not using for some kind of storage. So, while I was watching Moribito: Guardian of the Sacred Spirit, I decided to see if I could put one together with my oldest and favorite childhood toys: my Legos. It turned out that I did have enough Legos to build a framework to hang sheets of white sketching paper.

Here’s the breakdown: the floor of the whitebox is made out of two Lego town road plates put side by side. The framework is made out of blocks and they’re each about 37 Lego blocks high and they’re 2×4 peg towers. There’s three cross beams for the sides and the back. From these I fashioned white walls out of my 14×17 in. Biggie Sketchbook paper. The backdrop is an 18×24 in. sheet of sketch paper. I only have one light source here, which is an overhead lamp. The whole thing sits on my drawing table — which I’ve leveled — for the time being I haven’t been using my drawing table for any kind of actual drawing, so it’s a good work area for this setup.

That’s it.

I fashioned this so I could take some better pictures of my newly purchased anime PVC figures. I’ve been watching a boatload of anime — it’s a phase I’m going through right now. I started with Japanese Dramas such as Producing Nobuta, Densha Otoko, and Beautiful Life, and once went on back to anime sometime back in October.

One of the shows I finished off last year was Galaxy Express 999. I’ve posted about my obsession with this show in the past. I learned about it back in 2008 or 2007 after watching Kino’s Journey and fell in love with the show then. It was being fansubbed — imagine that, after 20+ years it’s finally being fansubbed, and then all of sudden it was dropped because Toei was going to do the translation. It took a while but eventually the entire series showed up on Crunchyroll.com and I was able to watch it all — for free. You can see it there too. I can’t recommend every episode. Some stories are plain out silly and the show’s animation definitely hasn’t aged well, but that’s all apart of its (creepy) charm. It’s also very melancholic and tragic, but I eat that stuff up. I got myself PVC figures for Maetel, Emeraldas, Tetsuro, and Tochiro.  They’re cheap since no one gives a rats ass about them anymore. Some photos from my flickr account reposted here:

I have a few other PVC figures so I’ll eventually get around to shooting them too. It might be cool to get a macro lens and go in really close. It might also be really cool to get a better light setup.

Tags: Galaxy Express 999, photo white box

I’m a huge fan of Galaxy Express 999. You can read all about that in this previous post I did.

I started watching the episodes fansubbed by Live-Evil about a year ago and I was pretty damn hooked to the show and I still love it for all the same reasons I did then.

So then, some excellent Galaxy Express 999 news…

Live-Evil said they were dropping GE999 because Toei Animation was going to officially subtitle the show for English digital distribution sometime last year, and sure enough episodes started to show up on Crunchyroll.com. You could watch up to episode 61 — and for some reason it was missing episode 59. No idea why, but now if you go back to crunchyroll you can infact watch the entire TV series of GE999. All 113 episodes of it. I’m stoked, especially since I thought I might never get to see the entire series.

And for some reason, right now anyway, you can watch all of that for free streaming over your web browser. Quality’s not too important with the show since it was made in 1980 and it the animation looks shoddy half of the time, but you watch it for the storytelling and characters.

You can purchase the episodes off crunchyroll, and also you can purchase the episodes of Amazon.com for digital download. I bought a handful of them there.

It’s a good time to ride the sea of stars…

Tags: Galaxy Express 999