DANIEL.AU

Ooh, it begins. Shit is getting real, but shit has not yet met fan.

Sorry for the late update. Of course, if you’ve been following me on Twitter you already knew it would happen. You also know I enjoy swearing at things.

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I don’t know if anyone out there is, like me, unfortunate enough to be unable to stop watching K-ON. But if you have, with this series of videos, it’s all been worth it.

Nico Nico Douga user “hayawo” has chosen some of the series’ opening and ending songs, and decided to rip the fuck out of them with his guitar. If you’re anything like me, you’ll be in heaven at seeing some of these songs sent straight to hell, with shredding, divebombs, Deep Purple, and at times, yelling directly into the pickup (?!).

My favourites:
No, Thank You
Don’t Say Lazy
Listen

Now if he’d only get around to some of the more treacly ones.

Next CRIME AND PUNISHMENT chapter in the next couple of days. Stay tuned, and stay rocking!

Back again with chapter 4, and only one this time. This is really the last chapter of throwing the ingredients in the pot, and from the next chapter things are gonna start boiling.

A big thanks to everyone who’s given this project a chance. We’re planning to update weekly, and if you just can’t wait I recommend following this blog on Google Reader or your preferred RSS app. I’m also going to get a Twitter account and put up progress reports for those of you out there who tweet. More on that in a couple of days.

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What is this project?

A big three chapter bang to welcome the new project. OK so nothing really goes bang in this release, but you won’t have to wait long.

In these three chapters most of the main players make an appearance, if only briefly, the stage is set, and a lot of ominous things are said. This should get you acclimatised to the setting too – people who haven’t read the original will probably doubt that this is a retelling of an old classic. It feels totally fresh to me.

Ochiai’s art takes some getting used to, and the simple designs remind me of American indie comics. As a draftsman he doesn’t immediately blow you away, but wait till the pulse of the story starts quickening. The art rises to the occasion and then some. After the first two volumes I was convinced that as a storyteller, this guy is probably even better than Junji Ito.

With that completely unnecessary comparison, let’s get into it.

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More than ever, everyone likes a vigilante story. The image of a young man, cast out, shut-in, seething with cold rage and high purpose.

Death Note. Watchmen. Taxi Driver. The Dark Knight. These are potent fantasies. We are still alone, but our loneliness is now heroic, a sacrifice we make for others. We stand not just apart from everyone else, but above. We have a secret mission, and if we told you …

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New project announcement AFTER THIS I swear.

Alright, so the last discussion wasn’t actually very fun at all. Let’s see if I can
make it up with more shit from 2ch.

This thread from giant Japanese messageboard 2ch shows us what some
Japanese people think of those t-shirts a lot of people wear that have Japanese
text on them.  Like the previous thread, laughs are had, Koreans are blithely
insulted, and a little self reflection is done by the end. Also surprising cameos
from Aya Hirano, Vin Diesel, Michael Jackson, Daniel Radcliffe, Lady Gaga and
4channel.

It’s a star-studded ensemble cast, so check it out.

(This one was aggregated by Hamusoku, another website collecting
interesting 2ch threads. Also, image heavy warning, and formatting
fuckery is taking place. Let me know if anything comes out weird.)

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I’ll be announcing the next project this week and posting it next week, but first a little fun.

You might’ve heard that a couple of the bigger English scanlation sites were shut down recently.

And while it might be a long long time before anyone cares enough about this place to shut it down, I still found the whole mess interesting in the same way that car accidents are.

Clearly the English speaking fandom is growing up if we were deemed a worthy target for the scorn of 2ch, the monolithic Japanese messageboard. Someone posted about the demise of these sites, including translated forum comments. Not to be outdone, vocal peeps from our own side fired shots back across the bow in response to translated 2ch comments.

After reading the fallout on both sides, I never saw any source for any of these translated comments. Half of the responses on their side and on our side are dedicated to blasting apart straw soldiers. These comments or something like them were probably made by somebody at some point, but anybody who’s spent more than a second on the internet could tell these were either trolling and/or written by a 13 year old.

Over at 2ch, after all the comments that our tears taste sweet and other schadenfreude, and the never-passed up opportunity to get in a shot at Koreans, there was some pretty interesting stuff.　That’s why I’ve put on my translating hat and cherrypicked the better comments, instead of the worst ones, and posted them here. I knew 2ch was full of trolls and threadshitting, but I never knew they knew so much about us.

My quickie translation from the site Itai News, an aggregator of 2ch comments to cringeworthy stories. So you can go ahead and verify that these comments were actually made, or take issue with my translation, but I don’t think this is going to start any more wars. You won’t find a whole lot of staged outrage here.

So sit back, put some tea on, and pretend they’re not taking about you.

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As promised, the collected Remina volume.

Choose a place to download:
Megaupload
Mediafire

And now, an announcement.

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Michio hasn’t left his bedroom since junior high, and he should be in college by now. All his old classmates are turning twenty this year, and in Japan, that means you can vote, drink, and drive (not necessarily in that order). It also means that all across the nation, ceremonies are being held to celebrate these twenty year-olds “coming of age”.

One day, Michio gets a call out of the blue from a girl he crushed on back in school. She’s inviting him to the ceremony, and to a class reunion afterwards.

Will he go? Will he stay in his room? Wait, why is this a Junji Ito story?

Oh, that might be the part where the story takes place against a backdrop of vicious serial murders where victims are left naked and literally stitched together with fishing line.

I’ve loosely translated the title of the story as ARMY OF ONE, and I hope you like it.

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