2011 - 03/2011 Meeting

Page Created: 02/05/11. Last Updated: 04/06/11.

ANIME PROGRAM

Videos Screened:

Haibane Renmei

..........Wikipedia Entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haibane_Renmei

Hell Girl / Jigoku Shojo: Girl from Hell

..........Wikipedia Entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_Girl

Is This a Zombie? / Kore wa Zombie Desu ka?

..........Wikipedia Entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kore_wa_Zombie_Desu_ka%3F

Now and Then, Here and There / Soko ni Iru Boku

..........Wikipedia Entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Now_and_Then,_Here_and_There

Meeting Notice Preview:

Our March 12, 2011 Meeting will feature a program of Anime Videos presented by members of the North Jersey Anime and Manga Meetup. Anime is the term for animation from Japan. We expect to have at least a partial list of videos to be screened shortly

We will be doing things a bit differently at this meeting. We are reversing the usual locations of our two pre meeting activities. The Ice Nine discussion will be held in the Cultural Center's basement. The pre meeting videos will be shown in the main theater are of the first floor. This will make the logistics of the evening a lot simpler. The equipment need only be set up in one spot instead of setting up in the basement and then carrying everything upstairs.

Normally our Animation Associates screen animated videos before the start of the General Meeting. To guard against everyone getting burned out on animation, we will instead play DOCTOR WHO: A CELEBRATION, featuring music from the BBC series with clips under the banner of our Armchair Odyssey group.

You can view a list of past pre meeting anime and animated features on our Animation Associaties Page and a complete list of all animation viewed at all Association events under Animation & Anime.

MEETING SUMMARY

Meeting Date: March 12, 2011.

Meeting Site: Saddle River Valley Cultural Center. Upper Saddle River.

Official Attendance: 16.

Meeting Program: Anime Videos.

Notes:

The original plan was to show a different set of videos than those we actually screened.

Original Videos Line up:

FLFC (Fooly Cooly) / Furi Kuri

..........Wikipedia Entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLCL

Desert Punk / Sunabozu

..........Wikipedia Entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Punk

Ranma 1/2 / Ranma Nibun-no-Ichi

..........Wikipedia Entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranma_%C2%BD

The Twelve Kingdoms / Juni Kukuki

..........Wikipedia Entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Kingdoms

Newsletter Account

The General Meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County was held on Saturday, March 12, 2011 at the Saddle River Valley Cultural Center in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

The evening started off with a "this doesn't look good" moment. When Director Philip De Parto arrived to open the building, he discovered a parking lot full of cars from a late-running prior event at the facility. The queasy feeling worsened when he discovered that the long-time head of the Cultural Center was no longer with the organization and that the back-up had no idea of how to contact the Association. Everything was worked out well before the start of meeting proper. Thanks go to Roy Greenberg and Barry Weinberger for help with the set up.

The Armchair Odyssey screening of the DOCTOR WHO: A CELEBRATION concert with master of ceremonies David Tennant was held in the theater area and captured most of the early arrivals, with Barry, Roy and Taras Wolansky holding a small Ice Nine discussion of movies, comic books and television in the basement.

The program proper of the evening’s meeting was a screening of Anime (Japanese animation) videos. We had attempted this program in January, but things didn't work out, so March represented Take Two. The videos were brought by four members of the North Jersey Anime and Manga Meetup: Justin Moy, Joseph Salazar, Patrick Thomas and Geoffrey Young. Justin brought in his laptop which allowed video files in a variety of formats to be shown.

The first episode of four different series were screened.

"Cracked Time / Hibiware Jakan" of HELL GIRL / JIGOKU SHOJO is a revenge tale of a high school student being mercilessly bullied by a clique of girls in her class. She learns of a website which connects to Hell and eventually becomes desperate enough to use it. The Hell Girl is summoned and takes the chief tormentor to Hell, but the price of this service is the user’s soul after death.

"Yes, I’m Maso-Shojo / Hai, Maso Shojo" of IS THIS A ZOMBIE? / KORE WA ZOMBIE DESU KA? was much lighter fare. A young man is slain by a serial killer and revived by a close-mouthed female necromancer who has decided to take a room in his apartment. When he protests, he learns that you can't really argue with a determined necromancer who has raised you from the dead for her own reasons. He decides to return to school and continue his old life as best he can while searching for his killer. Unfortunately, he stumbles into a battle between a demon and a ditzy demi-goddess during his investigation. Worse, his undead state shorts out the woman’s powers, so she is forced to transfer them to him. This includes her magic sword (a chain saw) and her armor, which is in the form of a frilly girl’s uniform. The final scene is Maso standing, dressed as a girl, in a smoking crater created by the dispatch of the demon. The student body surrounds the crater in the school's parking lot, shooting cell-phone pictures of Meso in drag. He would die of shame were he not already deceased. This had the general flavor of RANMA 1/2 for me.

"A Girl Admiring the Sunset" of NOW AND THEN, HERE AND NOW / SOKO NI IRU BOKU has another disaffected young man as its protagonist. After losing a martial arts match, he climbs an abandoned smokestack to brood over his defeat. He is surprised to see a beautiful young woman sitting atop a neighboring smokestack, apparently doing the same thing. He is even more surprised when a spaceship shows up and captures them both in a tractor beam and transports the pair to another world or time. The woman is on the run from the military police and he’s become her accomplice.

My favorite was "Cocoon - Dream of Falling from the Sky - Old Home / Mayu - Sora o ochiru - Orudo Homu" from CHARCOAL FEATHER FEDERATION / HAIBANE RENMEI. This is really hard to summarize, even after having watched the entire series.

Rakka is a teenaged girl who hatches from a cocoon in some sort of weird afterlife which has aspects of Christianity and of Buddhism. She is one of a small group of Haibane, who appear to be human except for the small wings growing out of their backs and the halos around their heads. The Haibane live in a huge city filled with humans, who treat the winged ones with an odd reverence. Neither the humans or the Haibane can leave the confines of the vast city which is surrounded by a great wall. A mysterious priesthood runs things, but they interfere very little in day to day life beyond enforcing some apparently arbitrary rules like not touching the wall. The city appears to be some sort of purgatory for the Haibane, who must work out some issues before they can pass beyond the walls.

This summary greatly simplifies matters. The art design is impressive, from the windmill farms that provide power to the city to clock towers which keep time to hidden passageways in the temple. The relationships between the six main characters slowly reveal themselves and change over the course of the series. This is an odd, surreal work, filled with sentences started but never finished, visions glimpsed and not explained. It is totally non-formula and could never be made for American television. Highly recommended.

Our thanks to Justin, Joseph, Patrick and Geoffrey, to Roy for the tea, to Robert for additional snacks, and to John and everyone else who helped with the set up and clean up.