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Log Time Podcast #7 | Summer 2015 Anime — Shounen With Sunglasses

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Log Time is the podcast of The Backloggers where we talk about anime, manga, light novels, and how Albert Wesker should never be allowed to drive at night given his vision impairments.

Back because of popular demand of the three people who do it, it’s the Log Time Podcast! In this episode, Owningmatt and Mythos discuss strange games about games, the Summer 2015 season of anime, relating Noragami to American Gods, and so much moar!

Thanks Krista (keytajoy) for making our Logo for this week’s Log Time!
http://keytajoy.deviantart.com/

Intro and Outro song: “Platform” by Or4nges
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/458694

Trigun:  Call Now and We’ll Double It.  Double the Bullets, Double the Action, and Double the Dollars.

Selie 1 Comment

So I’ve finally moved in about one thousand five hundred miles away from where I used to live and have a full-time job with slightly odd hours so it’s been a bit harder to make updates.  On top of that, I had a bit of writer’s block while writing this and ended up solving it by starting up a second blog for my own passion project of creative writing at StoryTimeWithMythos.  However, I will say that now that I’m moved in and finally have some free time, I’m dedicated to updating for you guys with more interesting articles and the like.  The next few articles will be more about specific subjects rather than saluting an anime from my youth as I enjoy those a lot better and feel they’re much stronger discussions.  

Trigun

Even today, one hundred years after the remnants of the pioneers finally explored the frontier and civilization started booming, we’re in love with the idea of The West.  The Western genre has covered a historical hundred-year gap from the end of the frontier to today with films and shows that explore the ideas from that time in America. It was that wonderful part of history where those who made a mad dash for land carried a gun, lived by their own hands, and occupied lawless towns near inhospitable and harsh wastelands.  It’s not just America that’s been fascinated by this idea either.  Many countries around the world have loved to make their own ideas from this setting.  In fact, the reason the once_upon_a_time_10famous subgenre of Spaghetti Westerns is called as such is because they were Italian films.  Nowadays, you don’t see many westerns being made.  Cinema fell in love with the later genres of the 20th century that took hold after the boom of space odysseys in the late 60s through the 70s that changed science fiction from pop serials to the big hit movies of the later decades.  However, that doesn’t mean the genre has died out.  Recent films like The Good The Bad, and the Weird put their own unique twist on the genre and Clint Eastwood even stepped back into his old shoes to do an oscar-winning and absolutely beautiful revisionist version of the Western in Unforgiven.  One of my favorite ideas that has evolved from the Western genre, though, is to take the plot, style, and characters of the Western and apply them to a new frontier to explore.  Particularly, in the case of Trigun, I’m referring to the Space Western.

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Log Time Podcast #4 | The Future of Fansubbing — Irrelevantly Making Something Relevant

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Log Time is the podcast of The Backloggers where we talk about anime, manga, light novels, and where after trying to get the intro right four different times generaltofu ended up having to do it for Mythos.

In this episode, the full Backloggers crew (Owningmatt, generaltofu, and Mythos) discuss if fansubbing anime is really necessary anymore and if so, why?

This is in response to a post by the blogger Dark_Sage who reviews fansubs and anime.

Thanks Krista (keytajoy) for making our Logo for this week’s Log Time!

Intro and Outro song: “Platform” by Or4nges

Edit: Sorry for the video actually saying Episode 3 instead of Episode 4. I forgot to change that over when we put the title onto the video. My bad! – Owningmatt93

Log Time Podcast #1 | Spring 2015 Anime — Let’s Get This Terrible Party Started!

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Log Time is the podcast of The Backloggers where we talk about anime, manga, light novels, and randomly divulge into jokes about taking potato chips and eating them.

In this episode, Owningmatt and Mythos talk about their thoughts and feelings on the Spring 2015 anime season as well as how to use plot devices and what is this generation’s introductory anime.

Also, due to Owningmatt’s nervous habit of clicking pens, clicky pens are now banned from the podcast.

FLCL and Revitalizing Creativity – Throwing S**t at the Wall Until Something Sticks

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7329_flcl

Innovation is an idea that’s a lot harder to produce than what it may seem.  Within an industry, you’ll see a significant amount of titles or products that all seem to look the same simply because innovation is difficult to create at all times.  However, that’s why innovation and creativity are necessary elements.  Without them, stagnation starts to creep in, possibly causing the failure of an industry.  It’s weird to think that the anime industry would have this problem, what with hundreds of shows and multiple unique ideas being produced every single year.  Even though some may say there’s a decline, numbers show that the anime industry has been happily growing since the 90s with more and and more shows and larger profits being made.  However, just like other inevitable phenomena — war, famine, another shitty parody movie that tries to be Airplane but fails — there are times in an industry that creativity and innovation are not as present or simply very much needed.  The early 2000s was a situation like this for anime.  The industry was just starting to grow after the mega hits of the late 90s, and needed something new in order to inspire others and rocket itself into the massive industry that it is today.  A few shows started to display interesting ideas that were based around older series (such as One Piece, Rurouni Kenshin, Gundam), but I would argue FLCL (pronounced “Fooly Cooly”) was that one big thing that had such massive creativity that it showed not only what anime could do, but how the industry could turn from a once blossoming tree, which slowly grows each year, into a gargantuan oak that eats orcs and takes down Saruman in the second act.  FLCL is inspirational because the show itself is an inspired work.  It wore its heart on its sleeve and showed a massive amount of references and wacky humor while attempting to combine interesting ideas from many different places.  FLCL’s philosophy is, in a sense, the same as a monkey’s attempt at art:  Throw as much shit on the wall as you can and use what sticks.  However, this works so well because what stuck was so polished and great that it didn’t matter if it was the weirdest piece of art a creature could excrete and smear on a wall.

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Genshiken vs. Genshiken Nidaime:  Old vs New.  My Nostalgic Ramblings and how Changing Views in Otaku Culture Show a Great Future.

Selie 5 Comments

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Every now and then, the anime industry loves to poke fun at itself.  Sometimes, this self-awareness from the industry is like Watamote (the real name is way too long to type), where it makes us uncomfortable with how accurate it is to our own awkward lives, basking in our memories of awkward situations and episodes, completely departing from realism to the chagrin of those around us.  However, other times, the industry uses a softer approach, taking our wonderful memories of reveling in our nerd culture and both poking fun and celebrating their importance to us.  Genshiken and Genshiken Nidaime are anime of this latter approach.  Genshiken or, as it’s subtext defines it, The Study of Modern Visual Culture is a manga/anime about a college club of the same name and their experiences loving, hating, and discussing all of the merits of otaku culture.  The series takes all of the games, anime, manga, etc. that we know (as well as some fakes ones it invented so wonderfully that they were spun off as their own anime) and takes pride in using their likeness for comedic and celebratory effect.  In fact, a surprising thing from this series is that it doesn’t just parody other anime, games, manga, etc. with alternative names or other ways to get around copyright.  For most references, the series straight up calls out the names of the anime and shows actual gameplay of certain games.  Genshiken was always very upfront about what it referenced and used each name or character from a different series as a badge of honor, showing how the creators, like their readers, were also otaku of a high pedigree.

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The Backloggers Introduction — Prepare Yourself for Backlogs of Fun

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Welcome to The Backloggers, a new anime blog website talking about some of the ins-and-outs of different anime and anime mediums!

As you may have already guessed, we’re a group of anime lovers with a mountain of anime we still need to watch through.  So, as we venture into our backlog of shows and movies, we’ve decided to talk about some of these series with you and discuss the merits of anime, the anime industry, fansubs, and some of our thoughts about the current anime season as well.

With each blog member having different views and ideas, The Backloggers strive to create intellectual discussion and thoughts about different mediums within anime and anime-related mediums.  The birth of this idea formed from three guys that initially met up by simply saying, “Hey, you wanna watch some anime?”.

Although we’re good friends and share similar interests, we still have our differences and different thoughts about each show we watch. Because of this, posts by various members of the blog may not share the same viewpoints as one another, which is something that we actively promote as well. Just because we are close does not mean we have to agree with one another or share similar ideas or thoughts about a show! However, no matter what the original viewpoint may be, we still strive to bring you the same type of intelligent and in-depth discussions on anime and related mediums. 

So now that we have the introduction to our blog out of the way, let’s jump right into that sweet, sweet content, shall we?