I Feel Like Such A Nerd.
It's been a long time since I've actually marathoned most of a series. It wasn't even an anime (sort of, is related).
ArkNorth got me hooked on "Densha Otoko" (Trainman) -- It's a Japanese live action drama, romantic comedy, actually, available here and there on the Internet -- he discovered it on YouTube, then we moved to Veoh, which has it in much better quality, and the movies (which we have not seen yet). AN has a computer hooked up to our new flatscreen TV, so we were watching it all nice and big - we weren't hunched over a little computer screen.
I watched a couple of episodes a few days ago, and today, we marathoned episodes 4-11. Now, each episode in the series is about an hour long, so... yeah, my eyeballs hurt a bit. It was addictive! We couldn't stop watching, we wanted to know what happened next. I'm normally not into the whole romance genre, but this was incredibly adorable and hiliarious (especially if you happen to be an anime-nerd and Internet geek).
The story (for those who haven't already heard of it) is based on a true one (but I'm sure the creators took a lot of liberties for the storytelling). It's about an otaku who saves a beautiful rich young lady from a drunken pervert on the train. She gets his address and thanks him by sending him a present, and he falls in love with her - and he goes to an Internet message/chat for single men to get advice on how to impress her --- He tries so desperately and the folks on the net sometimes give him bad advice, but they're all cheering him on. There are women in this chat, too -- all kinds of funky characters. There's a military geek, there's a model train hobbyist who's always shown dressed as a conductor, a world-traveler who has a different background every time you see him, etc.
And the main character has the most bizzare bad luck.
... You'll probably like it if you're a net-geek. The series made me realize again just how tight I am with some of you guys - my AIM friends, LJ buddies, folks I've met on message boards. Heck, I met ArkNorth on a message board. Still, I had a mild problem with the portrayl of the 'Net in the story: There were a few flamers, but where were all the nasty flame wars? Or the uncompromising idiots? The cruelty, the outright bigotry I've run into online from time to time? I mean, I feel very supported by the few people I trust enough to AIM and allow on my friendlist here, and I've been buddy-buddy with some folks on message boards, but whenever I look into a large community anywhere, I see the few good people and a SEA of annoying, dissagreeable persons. Densha Otoko was mostly warm-fuzzy, so I'd say that the portrayl of the Internet wasn't entirely acurrate (unless people just don't have extremely stupid online arguments in Japan?) And AN commented about the ASCCII artist board-member's huge pictures - how they'd (realistically) kill bandwith.
There were quite a few little anime things in there. Yamada (Densha Otoko) has toys from "Seargent Frog/Keroro Gunso," lots of Gundam models, Evangelion things.... And there are the obligatory Galaxy Railways references. The opening sequence (not on the first episode) is a parody of the famous "Daicon IV" animation. No references to "Trigun," though -- unless you count the ending song... the Sambomaster song a the end gets its very end cut off in the show, but if you look up the video on its own, the band screams "LOVE AND PEACE!" very loudly over and over again at the end. I'm not sure if they got that from "Trigun" or if it's actually just a fairly popular expression.
It's not something I rec to everyone - those with broken hearts probably will not like it... and those who are *really* adverse to romance. I usually am not a "romance" person, but I found it cute and actually liked it in this case.
I may do fanart someday, if I feel like practicing drawing real people, but it's not a series I think I could write fanfic for.
ArkNorth got me hooked on "Densha Otoko" (Trainman) -- It's a Japanese live action drama, romantic comedy, actually, available here and there on the Internet -- he discovered it on YouTube, then we moved to Veoh, which has it in much better quality, and the movies (which we have not seen yet). AN has a computer hooked up to our new flatscreen TV, so we were watching it all nice and big - we weren't hunched over a little computer screen.
I watched a couple of episodes a few days ago, and today, we marathoned episodes 4-11. Now, each episode in the series is about an hour long, so... yeah, my eyeballs hurt a bit. It was addictive! We couldn't stop watching, we wanted to know what happened next. I'm normally not into the whole romance genre, but this was incredibly adorable and hiliarious (especially if you happen to be an anime-nerd and Internet geek).
The story (for those who haven't already heard of it) is based on a true one (but I'm sure the creators took a lot of liberties for the storytelling). It's about an otaku who saves a beautiful rich young lady from a drunken pervert on the train. She gets his address and thanks him by sending him a present, and he falls in love with her - and he goes to an Internet message/chat for single men to get advice on how to impress her --- He tries so desperately and the folks on the net sometimes give him bad advice, but they're all cheering him on. There are women in this chat, too -- all kinds of funky characters. There's a military geek, there's a model train hobbyist who's always shown dressed as a conductor, a world-traveler who has a different background every time you see him, etc.
And the main character has the most bizzare bad luck.
... You'll probably like it if you're a net-geek. The series made me realize again just how tight I am with some of you guys - my AIM friends, LJ buddies, folks I've met on message boards. Heck, I met ArkNorth on a message board. Still, I had a mild problem with the portrayl of the 'Net in the story: There were a few flamers, but where were all the nasty flame wars? Or the uncompromising idiots? The cruelty, the outright bigotry I've run into online from time to time? I mean, I feel very supported by the few people I trust enough to AIM and allow on my friendlist here, and I've been buddy-buddy with some folks on message boards, but whenever I look into a large community anywhere, I see the few good people and a SEA of annoying, dissagreeable persons. Densha Otoko was mostly warm-fuzzy, so I'd say that the portrayl of the Internet wasn't entirely acurrate (unless people just don't have extremely stupid online arguments in Japan?) And AN commented about the ASCCII artist board-member's huge pictures - how they'd (realistically) kill bandwith.
There were quite a few little anime things in there. Yamada (Densha Otoko) has toys from "Seargent Frog/Keroro Gunso," lots of Gundam models, Evangelion things.... And there are the obligatory Galaxy Railways references. The opening sequence (not on the first episode) is a parody of the famous "Daicon IV" animation. No references to "Trigun," though -- unless you count the ending song... the Sambomaster song a the end gets its very end cut off in the show, but if you look up the video on its own, the band screams "LOVE AND PEACE!" very loudly over and over again at the end. I'm not sure if they got that from "Trigun" or if it's actually just a fairly popular expression.
It's not something I rec to everyone - those with broken hearts probably will not like it... and those who are *really* adverse to romance. I usually am not a "romance" person, but I found it cute and actually liked it in this case.
I may do fanart someday, if I feel like practicing drawing real people, but it's not a series I think I could write fanfic for.