Geek with Family

We just watched Disney’s Dumbo because Toddler_o_Geek is sick and that’s all she wanted to do (after whining "no" to the shopping mall, snacks, and changing diaper). I must have had the Disney Story Soundtrack vinyl LP when I was a kid because I sure did remember all those songs about trains ("Casey Junior"), clowns, building circus tents ("Song of the Roustabouts") and black crows flying ("When I See an Elephant Fly").

Dumbo is probably one of the few cartoons from Disney’s catalog with a scene featuring the main characters so drunk that they hallucinate "Pink Elephants on Parade," which my wife doesn’t associate with alcoholism, guess she didn’t watch enough cartoons as a kid. Toddler_o_Geek totally cracked up over Dumbo’s agent, Timothy Q. Mouse, drunkily popping and floating between champagne bubbles Dumbo blew with his trunk (wonderful toddler laughter very welcome as she is quite miserable with her cold).

Continue reading Disney’s Dumbo Back on My Big Screen - DVD Review

Popularity: 3% [?]

In an episode of Martian Successor Nadesico Akito Tenkawa, the series’ heartthrob cook and Aestivalis pilot, is admiring the handiwork of Seiya Uribatake, the Nadesico’s lead mecha mechanic and resident model kit otaku. Akito compliments him on how realistic his snow covered 1:35 scale Aestivalis battle scene diorama is, despite Seiya’s recent change of heart towards the enemy. The mecha otaku explains how he knows the difference between real and realistic. Both men are contemplative and not to let the scene end on a sour note Yurika, the ship’s lovestruck and goofy captain, shows up holding 1:8 scratch builds of herself with deflated breasts and Ruri with enhanced womanly features. She interrogates the otaku on how these can be realistic and demands that they be remade more accurately. The scene ends with her breaking the arm off her own modeled likeness by accident. Baka. Continue reading Realistic vs. Real - A Mecha Otaku’s Journal

Popularity: 15% [?]

When I was an adolescent I would tag along with my mother while she ran her errands. As she shopped for staples I resigned myself to the grocery store’s entertainment aisle. I would check out the latest mass-market novel releases searching for any movie adaptations usually by the overworked Alan Dean Foster. This was the only way I could experience many of the movies at the time like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Aliens and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. They would always rush these books to market so you would be lucky enough to read the director’s cut with various scenes dropped from the theatrical release. Second to these novelizations were the “limited edition” poster magazines with their fold out wall coverings, production shots, actor profiles and special effects secrets. When forced to make a choice I would always pick the novel over the magazine because it contained more content, but I would study the poster rag so I could successfully visualize the scenes and characters of the film that I would not see until its release on HBO.

Continue reading Sacrifice the Star for the Satellites - Devouring Blind Licensing

Popularity: 7% [?]

The Divining Pendant

(Major Spoilers Ahead!)

It is a wonder that I am still alive.

Throughout most of my childhood and adolescence a divining pendant determined my health. Whenever I would come down with something as simple as a cold or as complicated and mysterious as a thyroid infection every Valentine’s Day, my mother would solicit the help of her New Age guru Don. Based upon my birth date, name and a physical possession of mine he would psychically prescribe exact daily dosages of vitamins and herbal remedies. A divining pendant (a New Age crystal on the end of a chain) that I assume would point to the right drugs for the cure amplified his psychic ability. If you are detecting a hint of skepticism you would not be far off. However, the fact remains that I was never sick long and I have a relatively clean bill of health considering that I can count on my hands how many times I have made an office visit to a conventional doctor in my 26 years. Am I lucky or is there some method to the madness of the divining pendant prescriptions? What is luck? How is this fate determined? Is it controllable?

Continue reading Vision of Escaflowne - Anime TV Series Analysis - Fate and Luck

Popularity: 62% [?]

I would always come home from my fellow ninja’s house with grass stains on my back. My gai would get stained from my friend and his little brother using me as their judo throw pillow. As a ninja in training, I had little defense against their arm wrenching flips and throws. My friend would effortlessly use my own weight against me to leave me on the dewy lawn, then his brother would tug at my sore and crumpled body for the next self-defense maneuver. After they got bored with their rag doll, the three of us would retreat inside for some Donkey Kong on Colecovision, a popping and helicopter ridden breakdancing session, and some Knight Rider.

Continue reading Ninja on a Green Machine - Fifth Graders Shouldn’t be Practicing Judo

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Back in the mid-eighties, my home town only had one, short-lived toy store. It was a typical store for the time with a moderate selection of RPGs, overpriced action figures, cool Go Bots models (recasts of Mospeda kits), and super-balls. Like so many other small toy stores at the time it would be run out of business by Toys ’R’ Us and Kay Bee in just a few years. I would stop by the place a few times a week while my mother and I ran grocery errands (this trip would also include the local drug store where I could stock up on all my favorite Marvel comics) and check if they had any new Car Wars accessories or GIJoes. These items were really of secondary interest to me, though. My primary concern was behind the counter.

Continue reading Soft-Air Blowing Through My Hair - Shooting Your Best Friend in the Face

Popularity: 35% [?]

In past Fanatical Visions I have taken cheap shots at otaku who practice the art form of cosplay. I apologize for this and realize that it was small-thinking to make fun of a valid fan’s creativity just because it is something I don’t have much interest in participating in now or in the future. Now that I’m forced to search my memory I realize that I was an avid cosplayer (I hope I’m using this word correctly, it was introduced to me through a Club OI member’s email) up until just 7 years ago. Continue reading That Capgun is No Blaster - Memories of Childhood Cosplay

Popularity: 3% [?]

1987. I was a freshman in highschool, and my best friend’s best friend had connections. Not normal highschool connections, like fake IDs or syblings who could drive, but connections to the east. This friend of a friend’s father knew another businessman that traveled to Japan all the time. This man would bring back cool stuff for his kids, like laserdiscs. Akira has its moments. None too spectacular on a recording of the import disc played back in a 2-head VCR at SLP, it had tracking problems to say the least. Of course when you’re 15 you don’t really care about tape quality, we weren’t AV geeks yet. We watched the tape in his parents carpeted basement on a small crank-dial TV. I remember not understanding much of anything because it was in Japanese, and none of us could figure out the ending. We just ate up all the ultra-violence and mecha. Afterwards my friends played keep-away from me with a Nerf (Nerf or Nothing) football in the basement hallway, and we knocked a relief painting off the wall, at dinner with his family we blamed it on his little sister, this only got us into more trouble. I wanted the Akira tape, to view again and again, but the friend once removed wouldn’t give it up. He eventually let me borrow it and I never gave it back.

Continue reading I Experience Akira for the First Time - Somebody’s Dad Went to Japan for this Laserdisc?

Popularity: 3% [?]