Does this make me too lazy to write or creative enough to make a video? Eh, prolly both.
Serenity Frost
Petz Bunnyz [DS]
Bravestarr (my brain is too much jelly to think of a creative name)
The Marshal sadly awaiting his tentacle raping.Okay, so I was mucking about Hulu the other day and came across an old cartoon series called Bravestarr. I'd never seen the series, or even heard of it, so I decided to check it out. After having watched the first episode my brain had turned into goo.
To give you an idea of what's in store here is the intro on youtube. At the :50 mark is when the show starts to melt your sensibilities.
The pilot is called New Texas Blues and it does nothing that a pilot is supposed to do. We get no explanation as to why Marshal Bravestarr has the powers that he does and we meet two characters that I cannot for the life of me remember being in the intro. According to IMBD the first episode was called The Disappearance of Thirty-Thirty, but really I can't be bothered to watch it.
The first person to talk is Deputy Fuzz. If you recognize his voice that's because it's done by Charlie Adler who has saturated your Saturday morning cartoon life with characters on his roster like Cobra Commander, Doctor Doom, Starscream, Buster Bunny, Professor Monkey-For-A-Head, and nearly the entire cast of both Cow and Chicken and Rocko's Modern Life. With a character list like that he really should be ashamed of himself. Though, he was also Eric Raymond, Zipper and Techrat in Jem so I suppose, what with voice acting being such a lucrative business, whatever got him a paycheck was good enough.
Anyway, Deputy Fuzz takes his cues from other tiny animal sidekicks like Orko and Snarf. Be cute and just vaguely useful. As you can see when he mentions the plot of the episode, a music competition. Next we get to meet Thirty-Thirty BraveStarr's talking techno horse. The one we saw in the intro sprouting humanoid arms and legs. He has a giant gun he's named Sarah Jane and it's the first name for these character's we've gotten thus far. Next is hot red headed Judge J.B. McBride. She's the romantic interest, which should be obvious since she's going to a) sing in the competition and b) is an attractive girl who we meet in the first few minutes. She makes a point of needing to go practice and the scene moves on to the show's main villian.
We meet the back of the head of Stampede, a wrinkled old green dragon with what looks like metal bull horns stuck on his head. He's complaining about how much of a complete failure Tex Hex (also voiced by Mr. Adler) is at being a villain. He then gives the man a guitar that has the power to make people riot and take down buildings. He's named it The Black Widow. Tex Hex asks what he's supposed to do with a guitar, which is a reasonable question, really, since he'd probably have no idea there was a music competition going on. Stampede gives him simple instructions. Give it to someone who wants to win. Just proving that Stampede trusts a total stranger to pull off the job more than he does Tex Hex.
The next scene we meet the 'guy who wants to win' and his bandmate who's the voice of reason. Don't let the strange character design fool you, they're plot characters. They serve no function other than to drive the plot. Though, the 'guy who wants to win' does have a really magical way of playing that keytar.
Next we have the hero group complaining about the lack of backup. Apparently they feel something will go down at the concert (probably because they're attending) and the local law enforcement felt it was best to focus their efforts on the robot rebellion rather than indulge the Marshal's gut feeling.
Meanwhile Tex Hex is explaining his job to two more villians Vipra and Outlaw Skuzz. Vipra has the power to hypnotize people and carries a snake gun that paralyzes people. Outlaw Skuzz has a nasty smoking habit (SMOKING IS BAD KIDS) and carries a really keen insight on the human (and alien) mind. Of the badguys so far he's really been my favorite. He's actually the most competent at completing a task, even if the ones given to him are of a sidekick nature.
Tex Hex tells the two he wants them to start trouble. I'm not sure why, as one would think staying on the down low would be the best plan here, but this is probably why Tex Hex fails and villainy. Outlaw Skuzz actually asks this question. Tex Hex tells him it's to distract Marshal Bravestarr. Of course, if he didn't try to distract him, the man wouldn't know he was there. But then he also thinks that if he can just get things into enough disarray then he can just take over. So his plans aren't really that thought out.
So now the Intergalactic Music Contest begins and we get to hear some space music. Each of the bands are caught in a three movement loop while the music is performed, and it's really just god awful. It repeats the same few lines over and over again and they're not sung that well. I'm actually agreeing with Vipra on the whole hating music thing.
The Marshal complains about nothing eventful happening while Outlaw Skuzz uses his keen observation skills to pick out the alien not enjoying the music and then pesters him about it until he declares he doesn't like it. Then after a bit of rib poking 'oh ho ho' to the human next to him he actually manages to get them to fight one another. He hightails it out just before Thirty-Thirty and Marshal Bravestarr show up to break up the fight with a flowery speach. Outlaw Skuzz, being bright enough to leave after starting the fight, isn't there, but he's described so the Marshal knows who it is.
At about the same time Tex Hex is giving the Black Widow to our plot drivers. It was sure lucky he broke his keytar and refuses to play his old one.
The second band takes stage, this one's robots and they sound just like the first band. Marshal uses his EYES OF THE HAWK to scan the crowd. He spots Vipra.
More complaining with plot driver voice of reason.
Vipra picks a fight with the couple who just want to leave the blasted competition. She pulls her gun...yeah and Thirty-Thirty shows up to stop her from...paralyzing some people. He lets go of her arm, she points it at him, Marshal lassos her arm, yanks her out of the seats, ties her up, then shoots her out of the stadium with a grappling rocket of some sort. Now the Marshal suspects Tex Hex...for whatever reason. He goes back stage.
Our plot drivers are testing out the guitar it kills some flowers, but since the likelihood of that being connected to the guitar playing really is pretty slim, they pay it no mind. Well, the dude does, the girl is the voice of reason, after all.
While that's happening the Marshal is talking to the Judge about seeing anything strange. She didn't, seeing as how she was in her own trailer. She's announced to go on stage and we get to hear her sing.
Next the plot devices take the stage! They play and the riot breaks out. They somehow just know it's the guitar, but they play again anyway making the place start to crumble. Also, apparently the guitar shoots lightening. NO! He doesn't WANT to win with fighting and property damage!
The marshal spots Tex Hex. Tex Hex runs on stage, takes the guitar, and does what he probably should have done in the first play. Plays it himself. And OF COURSE! Having the bands play a song about peace and love will stop the riot AND nullify the guitar! AND IT DOES! Of course, one has to wonder why a guy who has the power to shoot off energy bolts, blow up mountains, transform, and summon creatures called 'fire-snakes' would let the fact the guitar stopped working make him give up. He even leaves in a burst of purple flames as a giant black skull. He really does just fail as a villain.
Funnily enough the plot devices don't win and the dude who wants to win declares he'll win of his own merit and not some strangers guitar. Good for him. Snarfo shows up to get his autograph and everyone has a good laugh.
At the end of the episode we get a Inspector Gadgetesque moral summary. DON'T BE TEMPTED, KIDS!
I only bothered to watch two more episodes of the show. Sherlock Holmes in the 23rd Century parts one and two. Because I enjoy hurting myself.
Good god, techno horse,
Serenity Frost
A Heaping Helping of Overanaylsis: Cartoons
I've had this written for a bit, but shameless procrastinator that I am, I failed to put it up. To get this out of the way to make room for my ramblings, I will get another "Weekly Dose of Head Trauma" up before I have to pack up and move back down to college come next saturday. Today, however, I'd like to share my thoughts on this week's punching bag of choice: cartoons.
As a kid raised in the 90s but old enough to have still enjoyed a heaping helping of 80s cartoons, I was in a pretty good place growing up. Disney had come out of it's 80s suck phase (That's not to say every movie that came out in the 80s was "Oliver and Company" or "The Black Cauldron". There were some genuinely good films like "The Great Mouse Detective", "Tron" (bet you didn't know that was a Disney film), and "Return to Oz". Hell, "The Little Mermaid" came out in the tail end of that era in '89. My point is that the film quality from the mid 70s up until the early nineties overall sort of blew in a big way.) and was turning out excellent clever movies; their channel not only ran great shows based on older characters like "Talespin", Goof Troop" or "Chip n' Dale Rescue Rangers" but also had shows like "Gargoyles" which remains deep and thought provoking even now or ones like "Darkwing Duck" that had a very strong tongue and cheek aspect to them.
Nick was still running good shows and quirky programs like "Rocko's Modern Life", "Hey Arnold", "Doug" (before it's disney era of suck and ultimately losing what was good about the show), "The Angry Beavers", "Aah! Real Monsters!" and a slew of others. Cartoon Network was firmly entrenched in running vintage cartoons like "Thundercats", "Battle of the Planets" and "Voltron" while running newer 'edgy' fare like The Batman and Superman animated series'. On top of that, they also ran "The What-A-Cartoon! Show" which gave small time animators screen time and led to really unique shows like "Dexter's Lab", "Johnny Bravo", "The Powerpuff Girls" (yes, I'll come out and admit I watched it, stop laughing) and "Courage The Cowardly Dog". All the while the WB was turning out insane crap like "Freakzoid", "The Animaniacs" and "Pinky and the Brain".
Most of these shows I mentioned, and many others that were equally good were great as kids shows, but there was a certain depth to them that left them enjoyable to more mature audiences. Hell I still sink a lot of time into watching them when I can. Of course, I'm a huge media geek who's never really stopped being a kid so that might be part of it, but I'm not the only one who does this because there are fansites and, in the case of "Gargoyles", even conventions around some of them. Fans of these cartoons are dedicated, no doubt.
But, as I get older it's hard not to notice a sad trend in animation these days. When I say animation, I'm not talking about Anime because there is a very strong difference in approach. Japan has seen animation as just another medium of expression whereas, excluding Matt Groening and Seth MacFarlane for the most part, animation will and always has been for kids in western culture. It is this difference that I think leads to the problem with Western animation: it's increasingly become drivel with no value beyond momentary entertainment.
It's not as though this has been a sudden transition though. there have always been a fair share of insipid pointless cartoons (I'm looking at you "Rugrats"), Sturgeon's Law affects everything after all (you know, that fun little law that states 90% of everything is crap?), but they didn't seem to be based in the predominate thought process of the people making the shows. I mean, even on the crappy old "Godzilla" series (the horrific old Hanna-Barbera one with the Minilla *shudder* knockoff called Godzookey, not the horrific one based on the horrible 1998 Matthew Broderick film) there was a message or something. The difference is that they were trying to TEACH kids something rather than keeping them preoccupied for a half hour. Hell, education was the whole premise of "The Magic School Bus", "Histeria!" and "Captain Planet".
The problem started becoming prominent (or perhaps I just noticed the problem becoming prominent) about the time the "Spongebob" movie came out. Prior to that it felt as though there was some semblance of quality control still in place. I mean, "The Fairly Oddparents" while a little on the absurd side, was still fairly clever and enjoyable even if you weren't five and the target audience. Hell, I'll even admit I genuinely liked "Spongebob" in it's early days (I mean a squirrel scientist living underwater and a feud between two fast food places run by a miserly crab and a megalomaniacal piece of zooplankton? How could that NOT be awesome?) but when it became glaringly obvious that you could made quite frankly ludicrous amounts of scratch simply by having a beloved cartoon character star in it, no matter how inane, well, I think that was the beginning of the downhill slide.
That's not to say that there haven't been attempts at more mature cartoons. "Teen Titans" did a good job of walking that line as did "Danny Phantom" (I'd throw the "Jimmy Neutron" series up since it's been consistently clever and amusing since the movie with some really funny homages and winks to older movies, TV shows, etc., but, well, I'm sure I'm like one of five people over ten who liked that series) and "Avatar", though the first and the last hid under a cloak of faux anime. Not to mention "Family Guy", "American Dad!" and "The Simpsons" have always made a killing and "Futurama" did well enough in the direct to DVD movies and the show DVD sales that it's coming back for a second season.
The point I'm laboriously making is two fold. Firstly, kids are a lot more intelligent than cartoonists now are giving them credit for and they deserve better than brightly colored dross with the depth of a spoon. Cartoons can be a teaching tool instead of a time waster and there's no reason for them not to be. Secondly, there is an audience beyond kids that enjoy cartoons, that's why the old 90s cartoons like "Freakazoid!" did so well on the DVD sales. Any of you cartoonists, if you're reading this, all I'm saying is there's a lot of money to be made reaching out to older fans like me. Think about it.
Wondering when the hell "Tiny Toons" is finally going to hit DVD.
Jenna Darknight
A Heaping Helping of Overanaylsis
I know I should probably be working on a new "Weekly dose of Head Trauma" since I've yet again been putting it off, but really I haven't had a whole lot of time to watch movies lately since I've been studying for the GREs and doing other things to get ready to go back down south to my apartment and another 10 week gauntlet that is the Quarter system. However, I figured I need to at least post something, so I think I'm going to start (along with still venting on shitty/absurd movies) running a segment that basically lets me run my mouth about games/movies/media in general since:
a.) This blog IS called Media Masochists Anonymous
and...
b.) I like to vent about things and this would give me a chance to do so in a way that might get some people thinking.
Now as for the topic of my vent this time around, the first topic that came to mind as I sat down to write was remakes/revamps of old franchises. The main reason this is probably because of the new G.I. Joe movie which I have not yet seen, but mainly it stems from a long running dislike of rehashing ideas by the terminally unimaginative because they know they can make a quick buck on nostalgia factor. Now, I've done a short vent on this before back before "Speed Racer" came out on "Brain Traumatizing Media", my little Livejournal movie critiquing blog that's been rather ignored since this one started. It was mainly to express my frustration with the movie industry's lack of creativity as well as my reservations about the Wachowski Brothers' foray into live-action animeville. Well, that's long come and past; Speed Racer was awesome, I saw it in theatres somewhere around three times (seriously, if you haven't seen it, go fucking watch it. Right now. I'm not kidding, go do it. you'll thank me later.) and my ire for remakes has dampened only slightly, but the point I'm rather laboriously trying to make is that I've said my piece on this topic before and while I most certainly will revisit it again at some point, I'm not going to in this blog.
No, instead, I'm going to talk about one of the biggest things aside from movies, cartoons and comics that helped make me the nerd that I am today: Video Games. More specifically one of the many, many things that piss me off about the industry, and this one has dogged it since practically day one of the home console: The console wars.
Firstly, I need to get something out of the way: I was born in 1988 so I missed the first round of the console wars between Intellvision, Colecovision and Atari (though I got to catch the great 80s cartoons and stuff), I'm a Zelda/Star Fox/ Metroid fan, I was a NES/SNES kid, not a Genesis kid. If any of those somehow make you think that I don't have a right to talk about the crusader like fervor surrounding consoles because any of those things go read another blog and come back next week.
As stated, I was a Nintendo kid growing up. My grandparents had an SNES at their place to distract us grandkids, and I can still remember buying my first Gameboy. That doesn't mean I didn't play any Sega, I did play a little, but only because a cabin we rented for the infamous family vacation had one. so, yes I was familiar with Sega, but stuck with Nintendo because that was what was available to me. The Sega-Nintendo wars were off my radar and it really wasn't until the Playstation hit the market that I truly realized how utterly and insanely dedicated people were to their consoles.
It's honestly something I don't really understand. I mean, I get the argument that the reason people get so up in arms about something this trivial is that consoles cost a lot so generally your mom is only going to buy you one, leading you to get very defensive about your choice. However, that argument stopped working about the PS2/Xbox/Gamecube era because, let's be honest, at that point most of us playing games were in our teens to early twenties and paying for our own consoles.
I think my lack of understanding comes from the fact that the last two "wars" (The PS2/Xbox/Gamecube era and the Wii/Xbox 360/ PS3 era we're in now) have had three very balanced consoles. The PS2 had amazing third party support and they had fucking Clover making games for them. Okami was god damn amazing and one of the best games I'd played in a while. the Xbox had Psychonauts, the singularly most underrated game of that generation (if you thought I was going to bring up Halo, I'm not because I think Bungie hasn't made a good game since Oni. There, I said it, and you can flame away, I really don't care) and it was probably the first console to make good (if abused) use of extensive online support. The Gamecube was admittedly the under the radar console of that generation, but gems like "Killer Seven", "Viewtiful Joe", "Metroid Prime", "Tales of Symphonia", "Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door" and "Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princesss" (which was originally GC exclusive and still plays better on that system) all made it at least compete at the same level.
This just illustrates what the console wars is about; narrow-minded mud flinging without an objective look at the consoles and judging them based on actual faults rather than perceived ones based around the fact that they are not your preferred console. It's stupid, petty and really guys, we should be beyond this by this point. This narrow-minded stupidity inhibits the growth of the community because we're too busy tearing each other down about graphics and control schemes instead of worrying about bigger issues like government censorship of games and the media scare mongering about the effects of violence in video games.
In the end it doesn't matter if your console has better graphics or better online supports, what matters is the enjoyment you take away from the time spent with it. Maybe if more console fanboys looked at it in that light things would be different. So to you console fanboys reading; maybe next time you're ragging on someone's console, sit down and play some co-op with them. You might find you have more in common than you think
I'm just saying, think about it.
Probably Needs to Get Out of The House More,
Jenna Darknight
Weekly Dose of Head Trauma Extra: UltraChrist!
First off, I have to say I never realized that intentionally looking for bad movies could be such a pain in the ass. I literally spent several hours to find this (my sister was the one who insisted we watch it actually), but wow....just wow, "UltraChrist!" melted sections of my brain that somehow survived my viewing of "Jesus Christ: Vampire hunter".
The plot begins with Jesus coming back down to earth and the first 3 minutes pretty much deal with him getting clothes. Yes, you read that right. If your first thought was "what the hell?" that pretty much sums up this movie. After he finds a smoking jacket and a pipe (God, I wish I were kidding) he meets and gets drunk with an ex-marketing guy who isn't really relevant to the plot until like the last 20 minutes of the film. Anyway, this guy sends the film on a further downward spiral by recommending Jesus should mimic a superhero in order to "reach out to the youth of today".
So yes, most of the movie is focused on Jesus running around in spandex fighting sin and building very flat romantic tension with his seamstress friend, while God (understandably) wants him out of the costume and sends an archangel to get him out of it. Lurking in the background of this is the AntiChrist, who has taken the role of the most important man possible (at least according to this movie) the head of NY's park service.
(This man decides if you can use parks and the torment of your immortal soul, fear him)
So after Satan fails to kill Jesus with a PDF (yes, I know this shit is bananas, just run with it) he summons the most evil people he can think of to be his personal Legion of Doom, if you'll allow the incredibly geeky analogy; Hitler (well, a rather portly one who likes bestiality), Vlad Ill Tepes a.k.a Vlad the Impaler done up Drac style, Richard Nixon (basically a dude in a Nixon mask with a recorder taped to the side of his mask), and the lead singer of The Doors for some reason.
The rest of the plot is mind meltingly bizarre, and it ends with a cage fight between the archangel sent down to take Jesus' spandex horror suit and a dude in a Richard Nixon mask. This is followed by a bad musical number about how Jesus approves of sex, which somehow converts most of the world's youth to christianity. The only good thing about the end is watching a "terrorist" toss a bomb into the trash because he decided he was through with terrorism.
Overall the movie looks like it was done by three guys and their friends one booze-soaked weekend. The movie just feels either like a cheap class project, only the content is something you'd never want seen publicly, or, given how many things are explicitly about sex, a bad soft core porn. I honestly can say this is a brain stabbingly bad movie and if you feel like torturing yourself for an hour and a half, have fun with it. I just needed to share this little horror and purge myself of what it's done to my brain. Now, I just need to stop the blood leaking out of my ears...
Forsees no Spandex related panic in the near future,
Jenna Darknight
(The pictures are used for non-profit purposes. Ultrachrist belongs to Kerry Douglas Dye and the others involved in the project. ...who are nice people and don't want to sue me.)
Weekly Dose of Head Trauma: The Spirit
Okay, I confess, this has become less a weekly thing and more a "whenever the hell I feel like it" sort of a thing, but since we're now two months into the doldrums (better known as summer break) I will try to keep this at a more regular interval. Well, after next week, I've got family crap to do and I will have no internet for that time, but after that I'll try to do an article once a week.
Now, normally when summer comes around my sister and I sit down and pick a theme (well not so much pick as walk into the video store and realize there's a whole section of ridiculous we hadn't sat down and watched yet). Last year it was Spy movies/TV/media. This year it's westerns and Film Noir. Firstly, no, I have no idea how those two got paired together and secondly, shut up.
Why we ended up renting The Spirit, I'm not sure. I'm admittedly a bit of a graphic novel geek, but The Spirit was one of those comics that was way before my time and I had only a basic knowledge of coming into this film. Aside from the general plot (cop gets killed, but his thirst for justice is so great he comes back to life to continue his civic duty as a masked vigilante, hence the title of The Spirit) I knew it was a Frank Miller movie and while I'm not a big Frank Miller fan, I will say that I rather enjoyed Sin City.
Anyway, my point is that, coming into this I was expecting a gritty Sin City styled version of The Big Sleep or something similar. What I got was an over the top comic book-esque action movie that was equal parts awesome and just plain ridiculous.
Firstly, I have to talk about the cast because I would never pass up a chance to be petty and make fun of the fact the Eva Mendes is a mouth breather with Baywatch pontoon lips who can't act. Granted, my most recent experience with her was Ghost Rider, a movie that somehow managed to make one of the coolest Marvel characters lamer than hell, but that doesn't change the fact that she just seems to play the same sort of character in most of the films I've seen her in. In this one she's the Spirit's old flame who happens to be a thief after Jason's Golden fleece (because a super hero film noir movie wasn't weird enough apparently). She sort of sits around, has two guys kill themselves for little to no reason and flirts with the Spirit. Of course the Spirit is played as a skirt chaser of Bond proportions, so I suppose you can't fault the film for being consistently shallow.
Honestly the two best actors in the film are Scarlett Johansson (who plays a deadpan lackey to Jackson and complements him beautifully) and Samuel L. Jackson to my eternal surprise. l Normally I think of Jackson as this guy who's pretty much played the same role his entire career (meaning he's an angry Black guy who's tired of your shit and isn't going to take it any more), but he really went all out as the Spirit's archnemesis, The Octopus. He's ridiculous and over the top while still managing to seem threatening. Plus he beats a guy over the head with a toilet. I'm not joking about that.
He changes costumes that range from slightly normal to completely outlandish, even ending up in a Samurai outfit (complete with topknot and fro sideburns) to cartoonishly hack his henchmen apart (aside from Johansson, but she's the only competent henchperson in the entire flick) to a Nazi outfit complete with a monacle that makes him look like a poor imitation of Rommel. To add to it, Jackson seems to revel in the absurdity he's participating in and proceeds to consistently steal every single scene he's in.
In terms of plot the movie is pretty standard noir fare up until the last half hour or so. The Octopus grabs a chest and some guys show up dead, so the Spirit looks into it. However, it then devolves into some insane plot that's built around the Golden Fleece (which is armor for some inane and arbitrary reason) and Samuel L. Jackson wanting to drink Herakles' blood (That's Hercules to those who aren't so mythologically nitpicky). The latter part of the plot is more in tone with the beginning of the movie where the Octopus and the Spirit engage in an over the top and ridiculous fist fight in the mud that escalates into hitting each other with a toilet and a sink, where the straight up Noir stuff feels way to serious in a movie that doesn't seem to take itself or it's audience seriously.
Overall, I found myself enjoying The Spirit even though I shouted at the screen repeatedly (to the point where my mom actually told me to stop shouting "That's insane!" at the screen or she'd come and sock me). It was insane and over the top, but it seemed to enjoy being so outlandish that you couldn't help but be sucked in. I recommend it, even if it will make blood come out of your ears at points.
(not quite) Dead and loving it,
Jenna Darknight
(the images used here were used for non profit reasons and belong to Frank Miller and Lionsgate Studios...who are nice people and don't want to sue me.)
San-X Feel Good Plushie Time
I started my journey to alleviate boredom today by kicking off Google's parental and country filters and clicking the I Feel Lucky button. The first place I fell into was San-x's Japanese site. http://san-x.co.jp/
It seemed pretty innocuous at first. Got some bears on there, a button of what appears to be two seal sacks humping in the corner. Nothing strange for Japan. Then I started to click around and I realized where I'd seen the word San-X before. San-X is a company that deals entirely with kid's toys. Mostly plushes. I actually own one on their nyankos. (White kitten that dresses up as various foods, mine is a strawberry cake. You can see it here.) I bought it at MTAC and didn't think too hard about it. It was four of my favorite things in one, cat, plushie, strawberry, and cake. Yay Japan.
My curiosity was peaked. I decided to look up what other sorts of forms my nyanko came in. (By the way, for anyone interested, the word Nyanko is a lot like us saying Kitty. Nyan is the sound they associate with Meow there, and Ko means child. Often child of, so if someone has the name Kumiko, then it usually means child of Kumi or even nicer, child of everlasting beauty. The more you know!)
The first picture I found on Google was one of a nyanko nugget meal on a website called Spiral and Circle which seems to specialize in Japanese collectibles. A lot of these were sort of cute up until I ran into ones like the Nyanko Cat Hot Pot Plush Set for $175. "Free Shipping!" the site boasts. I'd hope so for that lot of cash.
Deciding to wander back to the San-X website I found something even more fun.A downloads section. Complete with wallpapers and icon sets of their different products which include:
Rilakkuma in Japanese is sort of the mashings of the word relax and bear. According to the website Relakkuma is apparently often see sitting by a clothes line of suits that look exactly like him and waiting for them to dry. With him is a smaller white bear and a duck. The duck is often playing straight man to the pranks that the smaller bear plays on Relakkuma.
Kerori is a frog that changes color depending on his mood.
Nyan Nyan Nyanko I mentioned earlier.
Monokuro Boo are minimalist pigs. There are two of them, one black, one white, square and simple.
Tarepanda means lazy panda. Or droopy panda, which is the translation I prefer. According to the site Tarepanda is very lazy and gets around by rolling at 2.75 meters per hour. The word Tare specifically means to lay on your tummy. Tarepanda is really popular as he got the most hits on my google search.
Mamegoma means bean seal. As you can tell, the people at San-X are really creative at naming things.
Jewel Cat is, from what I can tell, meant to appeal to older Japanese girls. Kind of like how we have Lisa Frank . Come on, girls, I know you remember her.
Kutusitanyanko. Oh God Kutusitanyanko. Kutusitanyanko creeps me out. So very very much. The name means cat wearing socks and he apparently enjoys piano.
Sabokappa is a kappa mixed with a cactus. This one is actually meant to be an air freshener. The word Kappa means river child and it's pretty famous in Japanese folklore. Just in case you were wondering, a real kappa looks like this. Yeah.
San-X also makes plushes out of foods. A chestnut named Amagurichan, a family of cheeses, a rice grain that's always found at the bottom of the bowl named Ginshari-san, apples, bean vread, peas, a tangerine, and yogurt.
And not to forget Tissue-san and Beer-chan a 20 year old beer fairy.
Om nom kittehs,
Serenity Frost
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