I think you, Des, Anya, Bess, Natalie, Aries, and the rest of the awesome secret freakshow society would enjoy this. It's not as macabre as, say, something Takashi Miike would do, but it's still dark and violent and somewhat genderfuck. And the fight choreography is pretty great.
Since Kevin hasn't gotten 'round to linking it, I'll just point you at the comment thread where I brought it to his attention. Links for your viewing pleasure included.
(I am a one-person fandom-pimping machine, oh yes.)
OH SWEET JESUS HALF-NAKED BATMAN NOOOOOO. (This is even funnier when you actually look at Mark Musashi's IMDb and Wiki entries and realize he's been the suit actor for a couple toku heroes who were definitely taking lessons from Batman in how to play superhero, IMHO.)
Technically it's "Piece", like the clawed tank-tread caterpillar of homicidal authority is "Whole", but nobody working on it knew that when they were subbing it at the time.
And, as you might've picked up from my own thoughts on the series, I don't think that Yuki Saya's casting was bizarre at all given the body/gender/mind ideas the series plays with throughout its run. I think it just makes its thematic approach to identity, sexual and otherwise, that much more endlessly complex.
Seriously. He could be shouting "I. AM. BATMAN!" instead of cryptic Japanese aphorisms and authority-figure memes, and it would still work.
Yeah, I hadn't picked up on the identity confusion aspect of Yuki Saya being a girl when I wrote that. Now that I've read your commentary on the show on that other journal of yours, I think it makes a lot of sense.
I'm just ... going to sit here laughing my ass off a while because now I keep looking at Piece and going "IT'S LOLCATS BATMAN!" and collapsing into giggles.
Seriously, I'm gonna have to screencap him at some point and just edit the subtitles to say "I IZ BATMAN" or "CAN HAZ VENJINS?" or "IZ VENJINS. IZ NITE. IZ BAT-MAN!"
It's neat, though, that he's so completely fucking absurd and comical (Americans speaking Japanese in horribly grating accents are, if SAYONARA ZETSUBO SENSEI is any indication, considered objects of such incredible condescension and scorn to the point that they're the cheapest shot in any sort of "funny furriners" gag, kind of like how American mainstream audiences view Engrish) but still a creature to be feared - the best immediate analogue in American magical realism ventures would probably be Pennywise the clown from IT.
I was thinking more along the lines of Uma Thurman in Kill Bill Vol. 1 promising death upon the yakuza with an adorable Midwestern twang. I believe the opposite parallel for that phenomenon would not be Engrish, but the slow, halting triad accent of Lo Fong in Shanghai Noon. The way Piece struggles with the language just makes him all the more alien and terrifying.
Sure, we think Piece is absurd because a white guy waving a samurai sword and screaming in bad Japanese is hilarious to us--hell, we see that kind of thing at every American anime convention, and we do it in part because it's hilarious--but remember that Japan sees folks like Mike Musashi as the other, not as themselves. Piece's power to frighten comes from his twisting of familiar word-memes into something alien--something that is lost those of us who see white people as more than a novelty and are not native speakers of Japanese. His character is designed to be as far from the expectations of everyday Japanese life as possible, while still speaking enough of the
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Half-naked Batman is a pretty compelling reason for me to watch this show.
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(I am a one-person fandom-pimping machine, oh yes.)
Reply
Technically it's "Piece", like the clawed tank-tread caterpillar of homicidal authority is "Whole", but nobody working on it knew that when they were subbing it at the time.
And, as you might've picked up from my own thoughts on the series, I don't think that Yuki Saya's casting was bizarre at all given the body/gender/mind ideas the series plays with throughout its run. I think it just makes its thematic approach to identity, sexual and otherwise, that much more endlessly complex.
Reply
Seriously. He could be shouting "I. AM. BATMAN!" instead of cryptic Japanese aphorisms and authority-figure memes, and it would still work.
Yeah, I hadn't picked up on the identity confusion aspect of Yuki Saya being a girl when I wrote that. Now that I've read your commentary on the show on that other journal of yours, I think it makes a lot of sense.
Reply
Seriously, I'm gonna have to screencap him at some point and just edit the subtitles to say "I IZ BATMAN" or "CAN HAZ VENJINS?" or "IZ VENJINS. IZ NITE. IZ BAT-MAN!"
It's neat, though, that he's so completely fucking absurd and comical (Americans speaking Japanese in horribly grating accents are, if SAYONARA ZETSUBO SENSEI is any indication, considered objects of such incredible condescension and scorn to the point that they're the cheapest shot in any sort of "funny furriners" gag, kind of like how American mainstream audiences view Engrish) but still a creature to be feared - the best immediate analogue in American magical realism ventures would probably be Pennywise the clown from IT.
Reply
Sure, we think Piece is absurd because a white guy waving a samurai sword and screaming in bad Japanese is hilarious to us--hell, we see that kind of thing at every American anime convention, and we do it in part because it's hilarious--but remember that Japan sees folks like Mike Musashi as the other, not as themselves. Piece's power to frighten comes from his twisting of familiar word-memes into something alien--something that is lost those of us who see white people as more than a novelty and are not native speakers of Japanese. His character is designed to be as far from the expectations of everyday Japanese life as possible, while still speaking enough of the ( ... )
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