When I was in fourth grade, our English teacher had us write “sense poems.” Specifically, she chose us to choose some kind of concept or feeling and write what it looked like, sounded like, etc. So I think she wrote about “Boredom.” I don’t remember it very well.
Boredom
Looks like blank white.
Sounds like silence.
Feels like stale milk.
Smells like ... I don’t know.
Tastes like tofu.
Frankly, I made all of those up besides the last line, but that’s the most important one: “Tastes like tofu.” According to my teacher, boredom tasted like tofu! And, being an Asian kid, I was pretty confused. Tofu is great! It can be salty, or spicy, in many different forms and shapes and cooking styles.
So, I decided to write about tofu. What makes it hipster? It’s the fact that many people seem to think it’s bland and boring.
I mean, sure. When you put it like that, in the image, plain and without seasoning, it does seem pretty tasteless.
But that’s the point. Why do people eat rice? I love rice! If I have to describe how it tastes, I find it kind of difficult. It’s bland, but in this context, bland is not a bad thing at all. It’s a balance to other foods, that might be salty and spicy and sweet. Tofu is the same - on its own, sure, it doesn’t taste like that much. But when cooked..
Agedashi tofu. Fried with starch, then eaten with soy-based tempura sauce. Often an appetizer - certainly does a good job.
Tofu with peppers. Fried a little, seasoned, making it a little salty, with spicy or not-spicy peppers. Hard on the outside, soft inside.
Mapo tofu. Steamed and cooked in a sort of soup, which is extremely spicy. Can be combined with fish or vegetables, and seasoned with scallions. Super super spicy... and delicious!!
There are so many different varieties and choices that can be made when cooking tofu!! Some people just don’t understand it. White people, when they go to Asian restaurants, too often don’t order any tofu, because of the idea of it being something super boring. But I would disagree. Tofu can have many different forms and uses, tastes and textures.
I have to confess, I am dying. Well, not really, I’m only kidding. (Sophomore year was an entirely different story.) But, you see, death is just around the corner. You never know what might happen - a baseball bat, a cherry pit, an unsuccessful love affair...
So, knowing this, from all sorts of books and TV shows that tell you to live your life to the fullest (that ode by Horace, As I Lay Dying, Our Town, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, etc...), I decided to join this year’s lovely school musical, The Addams Family. Because I knew that death could come any time, I said, “hey, it’s always there waiting. but maybe not today. I think I’m quite sure that I’ll be alive long enough to successfully be in it.”
The 2009 Addams Family stage musical makes a few changes to the family, but probably not all of you know the classic family, so let’s introduce them as they are in the show:
Gomez, the loving father and husband. He is quite Spanish. In the show he is trapped between acting for his daughter and wife. “There are two things three things four things I would never do...”
Morticia, the graceful mother and wife. She and Gomez make up quite the lovely couple. “Death is just around the corner...”
Wednesday, the wonderful daughter. In the musical, she undergoes a sort of identity crisis, getting “pulled in a new direction” - towards things like sugarplums, and string quartets, and Disneyland. “I’ll go there twice!”
Pugsley, the strange son. He enjoys getting tortured by Wednesday, but doesn’t want to see her go. “Sitting in a tree, K-I-L-L-I-N-G.”
Grandma, the grandma. No one is completely sure where she came from, but she has a huge stash of herbs and potions. "Well, stop the damn texting and pick up a book once in a while!!”
Fester, the brother of Gomez. A ridiculous, silly guy. Fester’s ‘manifesto’ involves helping the love story along. “Let’s not talk about anything else but love!”
Lurch, the seemingly undead butler. He doesn’t talk much. “...rrrrrgh”
The plot of the musical is that Wednesday falls in love with an extremely normal guy, and they’re engaged. This introduces three characters, the Beineke family:
Lucas, a lovely kid who wants to maybe be a writer, or a medical examiner. He is totally in love with Wednesday, but is he a little too vanilla? (played by yours truly!) “Well, mostly I think about Wednesday, and how much I love her, and how we could have a wonderful life together...”
Mal, the father. He is very American, and is not at all understanding of anything the Addams family does. In short, very judgmental. “See what you did? Your mother’s rhyming again.”
Alice, the mother. She is lighthearted and wonderful, often saying random poems and other platitudes. “Yellow is the color of the warming sun! Yellow is the color of yumminess and fun!”
Anyway, already there’s a great cast of characters, I feel. What makes it hipster?
The reviews, I suppose. (And the idea that I wanted to write about something I knew about, since the show is this Friday and this week is tech week.) A variety of different theatre reviewers gave it pretty bad reviews:
According to the depressingly now-defunct website StageGrade, the general consensus was a “D+”. To be fair, these screenshots are from reviews of different incarnations of the show. (We’re performing the off-Broadway version.) Still, I suppose all of them share similar flaws.
Why do I like it, though? Perhaps it’s a little nebulous in what it’s trying to accomplish, I admit, and maybe there are ways it could be cleaned up or spiced up. But I’m having a great time playing it out, and I know the rest of our cast really enjoys it too.
Of course, it’s a comedy. Naturally, the Addams family has a huge share of very dark humor, about the strangeness of their family as well as just the situation they’re in. A lot of choice quotes that make me want to break on stage and start laughing, but that would be bad, so I guess I just have to get used to them! When you have to make an effort to hide your laughter while on stage, that’s a good sign, I think.
The musical part of the show is, at least, in my opinion, surprisingly good. There’s a variety of different musical styles used: Spanish flair for a lot of group numbers and Gomez songs, some more quiet and tender songs for romantic and other moments, and a lot of classic Broadway-like music. What I also notice is a lot of “continuity” within the show: the reusing of different motifs, like the “Secrets” motif, the two “What If”s, and a lot of musical cues in the underscoring.
The themes of the show can’t really be explained here without spoilers, but let’s just say that the one normal night the two loving kids are wishing for doesn’t really go well, which leads everyone to reexamine their lives and values. And along the way, a lot of different themes and morals get explored: secrecy and trust in relationships, seeing your loved ones grow up, the courage to do crazy things and trying new experiences...
But really, the largest theme is love. If anything, this is a musical about love. Many parts of it are dark and despairing and intense, but it’s really about love in the end. As comedies often are.
Anyway, you should totally come see it!! It’s on Friday and Saturday, and you should totally come. yeah. cool.
This third post will be about the rhythm game known as osu! Yes, it is spelled with the exclamation mark.
What a cool logo! osu, for which I'll forget about the exclamation mark for the rest of the post, is a video game I learned about sometime during sophomore year and have been playing nonstop ever since. Specifically, it's a rhythm game. Think like Guitar Hero or Dance Dance Revolution - a game that requires you to coordinate your hands and eyes in time with music.
So, how does this game work? It's hard to explain in words, but a two-word phrase: "circle clicking." In more words: move the cursor and click the mouse buttons or press the keyboard keys in time with the music and aligning with circles that show up on the screen. A little confusing, but here's a video of me playing to help you understand.
This is a recorded video of my own gameplay. As the title suggests, the song is "Calamity Fortune" by LeaF, on Extra difficulty. Users upload their own "beatmaps" - pretty much levels, for these songs, and they can be downloaded easily from the website.
Well, it does look pretty hard. Frankly it's more impressive in person, when you can see me physically pressing keys and stuff, but I still like to think that just videos still look cool. How do I do it?
A laptop. This is important. Actually, a computer (desktop) also works, but I like using a laptop in general.
A charger. This is also important, or else I will run out of battery. (Side story: for a while my charger was broken so that my laptop wouldn't charge, and it would run slower even when plugged in - I couldn't play osu for maybe two weeks because that :'( )
A mechanical keyboard.
The difference between this and a regular keyboard is astounding. Basically, a membrane dome keyboard, which most computer keyboards use nowadays, have soft rubber material to serve multiple keys; in contrast, mechanical keyboard have one key 'switch' for each individual key. This creates more noise, but it gives a much crisper, responsive sort of feel, and it also requires less force to register a keystroke.
As a side note, there are a variety of different switches with different force and noise and feedback traits, usually identified by color - red, blue, etc... Personally, I use black switches, mostly because my father just brought home a mechanical keyboard he'd found for free, and it happened to use blacks. Shrug.
A tablet. Not like an iPad, but like the one you use a pen to draw on. The one I use is the Wacom CTE-440:
It's actually at least eight years old, having been sitting in my house for a long, long time. Actually, I used to use a much newer model, but the cable linking it to the computer broke, so I've downgraded. This one still works quite fine, though.
While most people start with a mouse, as I did, I decided to switch to tablet. If you haven't seen how a graphics tablet works - basically, a physical area on the tablet is mapped proportionally to the area of the computer monitor. The pen acts as a 'mouse' or 'cursor' in that way, like a DS stylus, except rather than always touch the surface, the tip can hover a centimeter or so above and still be detected. In this way, there's virtually no friction (air resistance? pshhhh) and it's much more intuitive to control for a fast-paced game like osu. Still, there definitely are some really good mouse players out there. To each his own.
That's basically my equipment. It makes me sound like a professional or something! Although in reality I am just a loser high school student crying about college applications and acceptances.
Anyway, though, this is a casual hipster blog, so that asks the question: what makes osu 'hipster'? Well, it certainly fulfills the "unpopular" criterion. Most of the results when you Google "osu" are for Ohio State, and the size of the community is pretty small compared to others, evidenced by things like subreddit size, viewcounts on video streaming websites, etc. And, as usual, there are a lot of reasons for that.
One common criticism of osu! is that it looks repetitive. In a way, that's true - the game is primarily about clicking circles, and maybe a little bit of spinning. Is there really any variety? On the surface it seems like no, but I would really argue that as a player gets into the game and improves their skill level, the diversity of experiences in this game increases. It's tied to the beatmaps, really.
I know, it sounds kind of silly, but bear with me. Some maps are fast, some slow, of course. Some maps are big on 'streams' - long chains of notes in fast successions - while others are big on 'jumps' - notes that are far away from each other. But it's more complex than that; maps of course can use both, and are they long streams ('deathstreams', a good word) or just little bursts? How big are the jumps and is there a lot of time to execute them? (Even a half-second is really quite a long time for a cross-screen jump.) And are there a lot of sliders? These sort of choices that beatmappers make become a unique 'style'. It's a little hard to explain without getting very vocab-heavy, but in this way, all these different variables that go into a map do have a lot of differentiation.
Another problem that some would have with osu is the music choice. For some strange reason, the majority of songs are from anime or games, and 'games' implies Japanese games. Of course there are English songs out there, but they're pretty few. Besides anime songs, most of the songs either come from other rhythm games (Beatmania, Jubeat, Cytus, etc) or from internet-based music artists who produce really fast music (Renard especially, and goreshit to a lesser)
(A few from my "favorites" map group. Out of these eight maps, "boot", "Yotsuya-san", "Reizouko", and "Freedman" are all Japanese songs from internet origin; "NNRT" is from Beatmania, another rhythm game; and "Smoke Tower" and "TU4AR" are by an American artist.)
Part of the problem, I think, is that some kinds of music are just not as conducive to fun beatmapping as others. And the better ones may have been produced for the purpose of rhythm games, which usually means they're fast and upbeat. The best maps, which are often the hardest, often use music with high BPM and lots of percussion, which creates a lot of creative license for beatmappers to use, and a lot of room for difficulty. It's kind of natural, in a way, that American songs wouldn't succeed - most pop songs are fairly slow compared to rhythm game music, and even anime songs, many of which are super cheerful and peppy to a higher degree than most American music at all.
A good example of the music I'd refer to is in the video.
One last grievance with osu I hear is that, really, it's too hard. This is true and I cannot argue with it.
Those are 1/3 notes at 156 BPM; that makes it .128 seconds per note, and since this is AR9.7, that's .450 second after each note first appears... well, it's hard, to say the least. Here it is in video form (for the part in the screenshot, go to about 1:12):
"Dadadadadadadadadada" by Hige Driver join. SELEN on Special difficulty. (I can't beat this.)
THIS GAME IS TOO HARD!! but really, that's part of the fun of it, right? There are a lot of ways to define a "successful" play - no misses with full combo, SS (100.00% accuracy), just passing... Either way, though, this game has a system to rank players, based on their top scores. For example -
According to this graph I'm #7971 in the world, and #738 in the United States. It's kind of pointless but I'm kind of proud. I've spent quite some time getting here, and even though it might not have saved the world, I'm personally proud. I'm allowed to be.
A few of my top ranks. On each of these maps I could have had anywhere from 2 to 20 retries just to get these scores. It's dedication...
But is it worth it? For what?
It's for fun, really. What makes osu fun? It's a good question. Why do I like this game? It's literally just clicking circles; there's no strategy or plot or anything. I think the best way to put it is that it's kind of a meditative experience, in the way. Sometimes, when I feel like crying over life or college applications, it can be a lovely thing for me to focus on and keep my mind busy with just for a few minutes.
And if not relaxing, it's very intense, and very rewarding - I can feel the adrenaline (figuratively) when I'm racking up an over-1000 combo, and it pains me, almost to the heart, when I get a miss after getting said over-1000 combo, or when I fail a map I haven't passed after maybe 30 or more tries. But when I do succeed, I know it's a result of all the times I've put into this.
In that way, I think this game kind of motivates me to do the same in other pursuits - in school, in instrument practice, in interpersonal relations. I've gained so much experience, and it's been difficult many times, but I just try and try again and I can get better all the time, if I want to .It's kind of inspirational. With osu, the results are much easier to see; they're quantified in numbers of accuracy and performance points and score. But in real life, with how good I am at the cello or at preparing for scary multivariable quizzes, it's much harder to calculate - but it's still there, I realize.
Not only is this just for fun, it's also, in a way, a parable to other things in my life. Or maybe it's just clicking circles. Who knows.
To end this post, enjoy this ridiculously difficult and kind of terrifying map. It's very frustrating because I always fail in the last ten seconds. Oh well. I'll beat it someday.
"Because Maybe! pt. 3" by Renard, on Marathon difficulty. Songs include:
This second hipster post will be about the work of 19th-century literature, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.
How did I end up meeting Jane Eyre? In the summer before junior year, I'd been assigned a summer reading: one required book on literary analysis, and then a choice of one book from a list of novels. Among other novels, such as Catch-22 or The Joy Luck Club, I chose Jane Eyre. Why? Basically, because I knew it wasn't something that many people would pick.
Compared to stories about war and violence, or about Asian heritage, or about innocence and prejudice in the South, Jane Eyre doesn't have a very clear 'topic' for people looking into it from the outside. However, I chose to dive into it, and what I found was super worthwhile.
In a way, I've answered part of the question "why is Jane Eyre unpopular?" Here, that question overlaps with the question "why are classic novels unpopular?"
It's actually a good question. Many classmates found The House of Seven Gables an exercise in boredom and little else; however, I found something more to it, in intense dialogue and character, with themes of family and heritage and the past. I think that's it, really: the presence of ideas under the surface of the overlying plot, characters, and events; among their rich textures, there are universal messages and stories of humanity as a whole.
Modern popular media certainly have this, but I feel that it's more overt, almost more forced. The morals are often right there in front of you, simple and clear. However, I find that the complex ideas of novels such as Jane Eyre end up being stronger when we as readers are able to draw our own conclusions as to what their authors are trying to say. Ambiguity can go a long way. An extreme example is The Brothers Karamazov, whose characters each have their own differing worldviews on religion and morality; a more modern example is The Hunger Games, which despite the obvious cruelty of the plot events, have various moral interpretations and themes - but that's a topic for another time.
(Thornfield Hall, the site of much of the book, where Mr. Rochester lives. From the 2011 film adaptation.)
What Jane Eyre really says about the world, is a variety of ideas and themes. But first, it's important to understand what the book is about. Basically, the abridged version: Jane Eyre is a boss. She owns her own life, she doesn't put up with the crap that people try to give her, and she makes decisions for herself and whom she loves. Here are some examples.
Jane grows up in an abusive home with three bratty cousins and a rather biased aunt. Before she ends up going to boarding school, she literally tells her aunt: "I'll never call you 'aunt' again, and you are a huge liar. Screw this, I'm going to school." Well, that wasn't a direct quote, but it is basically what she is saying.
Mr. Rochester is barred from marrying Jane due to the existence of his insane first wife, Bertha Mason. Having conveniently never heard of this first wife, Jane is embarrassed and angered. Despite her love for Mr. Rochester, she sides with her dignity and leaves on her own.
Jane's creepy cousin John is pressuring her into marrying him and going to India. For a small while she accepts, but she hightails it out of that deal after hearing Mr. Rochester's voice. Whether she imagined it or it was real is up to interpretation, but the point is that her love and determination to fulfill that love led her to continue to own her life and do what she wants.
Basically, the theme and inspiration I get from this is: "Be a boss and don't put up with crap that you don't have to." It's an oversimplification, I admit, but it's a big reason I really like this book. Jane is determined to make her own way in life and go on her own path; she doesn't have the patience to deal with abuse from her family, deceit from her love, and creepiness from her creepy cousin. Instead of letting other people push her around, she goes on her own way.
This sort of independence goes right along with the idea of freedom. A passage from the book:
I felt that it was not enough; I tired of the routine of eight years in one afternoon. I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer; it seemed scattered on the wind then faintly blowing.
To me, this was an extremely powerfully written passage: Jane's passion for liberty and the phrasing of tiring of "eight years in one afternoon" are beautifully crafted. Here, Jane finally realizes how stifling her life at her school has been. While she has certainly been satisfied, she looks out the window one day and notices that there is so much more out there than what she's learned. Her life up until now has been her school, and before that her home with her cruel extended family.
While she wants to move into the future, a lingering force is the influence of the past upon the present. With this comes the theme of forgiveness, I think, as well as that of atonement. In the middle-to-late part of the book comes a chapter that wraps up Jane's relations with her family, when she receives a letter announcing her aunt's poor health and imminent death. Despite the cruelty of her family, Jane chooses to return home for a visit.
Her aunt remains fairly cold, and even reveals that she lied about Jane's death to her uncle, who would have given her a home. Even so, Jane remains, taking care of her in her last days and manages to forgive her. To me, this was a lovely scene - while it didn't advance the plot, it said a lot about Jane's character. Despite having withstood years of maltreatment and rudeness, Jane is able to forgive her aunt and family. Being a forgiving yet extremely spiteful person myself, I found that comforting to read.
Another example of this theme is the character of Mr. Rochester himself. He's led quite a sinful life, full of affairs and debaucheries. He's possibly had an illegitimate child, married the insane Bertha, whom he literally locks away in a room far away from him, and deceives Jane and Bertha herself by courting the former while still being married to the latter.
(An illustration of Bertha Mason after the fire.)
However, throughout the novel, he shows regret for these sins and misdeeds and wishes to make up for them. He genuinely apologizes to Jane in her anger over Bertha, he takes care of the child even if he doesn't believe he's her father, and in the end his house burns down at the hands of his wife. In this way, Thornfield Hall acts as a symbol of his own lavish livelihood, as well as of his past immoralities. When it burns down, he is cleared of these sins, in a way - a cleansing fire, started by his wife, the paragon of his sins. It's hard to interpret this, but I like to think of it as him being forgiven - not necessarily by Bertha Mason, but perhaps by the world itself.
And it's just that sort of thing that I love - being able to draw your own conclusions about what the author wants to say. Everything is, really, up to the reader's interpretation, as to what Charlotte Bronte wishes to say. In that way, many find Jane Eyre boring and ambiguous, but, again, in that ambiguity I find opportunity to think and theorize and apply it to my own life. I've left a lot of things out in this post - class, feminism, family - but they're there. I'm just a little tired at the moment; please forgive me. =w=
So, a lot of people don't like this book. It's not the most popular book among teenagers - in my English class, only two people read it for their summer reading. For many, it's boring, slow-paced, and narratively pointless. However, I really did appreciate its moments of quietness and buildup along with its times of action and intensity. Everything in it had its own purpose, and it was carried by an outstanding lead.
As a character, Jane inspires me with her independence, determination, and compassion. She's not perfect - her will leads to headstrong stubbornness in some situations, and sometimes she ends up not thinking it all through. Still, I really like her and find a lot of help thinking of her strength.
My first hipster anime post will be about one of my favorite anime.
"Anime" is a term for Japanese animation. It's popular outside of Japan for a variety of reasons. For example, a defining feature of anime is the art style. Here's an example:
This is a group picture from the show K-On!! - a fairly mediocre (sorry) show about high school girls who form a band. A lot of anime look like this - the characters (especially the girls) are really adorable, and accurate proportions are sacrificed for expression, cuteness, and aesthetic appeal. I think it's safe to say that a significant reason people watch anime is the art style.
Now, another defining feature of anime is a big difference from Western animation. Here, animation is mostly for kids' shows; but anime in Japan is used to tell a much larger variety of stories. From romance, to slice-of-life, to drama, to action...
to "psychological," which brings us to Flowers of Evil.
If you recognize the title, feel proud! The main character, Kasuga Takao, is a shy, introverted kid who has a love for literature: specifically, the poetry collection Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire. Pictured is the book as depicted in the anime.
Kasuga, attending a boring school in a dreary town, finds that his surroundings have little to offer him. Of course, there's an exception: his crush, Saeki Nanako, a pretty, popular girl at the top of the class. One day, Saeki accidentally leaves her gym clothes after school. Kasuga finds them, and, in a moment of insanity, steals them.
The next day, he's accosted by Nakamura Sawa, a quiet, unsociable girl. In her first appearance, she gets a 0 on a test, having left the whole paper blank, and subsequently tells off the teacher. "I saw you," she says. Calling him a "deviant", she blackmails him into entering a contract with her. Over the course of the anime, Nakamura forces Kasuga to undergo rather humiliating and perverted ordeals.
"I'll break down all the walls you've built around yourself," she says.
Why is Flowers of Evil a hipster anime? Because it's unpopular. Why is it unpopular?
Pictured: three screenshots of the animation. As you can see, it's very realistic, as opposed to the K-On! picture. This was achieved by a process known as rotoscoping: turning live-action footage into animation. It results in a very interesting effect: while certain stylistic choices are still present, like non-colored lips and unblemished faces, the realism of the proportions and movements undermines that, in a way. To many seasoned anime watchers, it's a huge turn-off for the art style to look like this. Many call it lazy, or ugly, and in the distance, some faces become featureless, such the father's face in the third screenshot. So, it's a big reason this anime is unpopular.
Another reason is the pacing. This is a little harder to explain using pictures and text.
In the opening scene of the anime, Kasuga wordlessly walks to school. While in the background other classmates are chattering, he says nothing. This goes on for about two minutes.
Much later, in the start of episode 8, Kasuga and Nakamura walk aimlessly as the sky brightens. This literally lasts for over six minutes.
The point is, it's a slow anime! Many minutes go by with very little happening. That's another factor that causes viewers to condemn Flowers of Evil as a "boring, unengaging anime," as one reviewer put it.
However, there's a reason I have it here on my blog.
Yes, I acknowledge that Flowers of Evil isn't perfect. I had my own issues with the pacing, and the animation took a while to pick up. But it's one of my favorite shows.
On the animation: I found the art style to serve a variety of important purposes within the show.
Attractiveness is a key point in a lot of anime, and in life in general. When people look pretty, you tend to sympathize with them more easily. This is known as the "halo effect", in which the an observer's impression of an subject, including that subject's appearance, influences how the observer feels about it. Most anime have art styles that make almost every character look cute and attractive, as shown in the K-On! screenshot. Instead, Aku no Hana gives what's right there: what's real, what's in front of you, leaving the viewer to judge the characters more like real people rather than caricatures.
And despite the lack of detail that some may perceive, I find that the art style still allows for a wide variety of subtleties and emotions to be shown.
Two screenshots of best girl Nakamura. The first shows her threatening Kasuga. Everything is still in perfect proportion, yet the mood is still expressed wonderfully - the sinister curve of her smile, the hair in her eyes, and the darkness of her eyes. In contrast, the next shot is of a much more sympathetic Nakamura. The angles of her eyebrows and eyelids, hair in her eyes again, and the shape of her mouth - these all work together to create a totally different mood. To me it's anything but "ugly" or "lazy". Instead, it creates a brilliant effect, showcasing how such quiet, simple details can create compelling emotions visually.
Another lovely part of the animation is the landscape shots.
The dreary, bleak school building shot. Although there's sunlight, there are a lot of clouds; this shot captures that sort of day where you can see the difference between sun and shadow, but everything is still dark. The light-less faces of the school buildings reflect that. The subtle stains and drabness of the building also tie in with Kasuga and Nakamura's frustration with the boredom of the town.
Not exactly a landscape, but this one of my favorite parts of the anime. After having intensely vandalized the classroom, Nakamura and Kasuga lie together in the center of a gigantic "flower of evil." The clarity of flower is hard to achieve, but I feel like this anime hit the mark - it's messy, disorderly, but distinct. The strange blend of realism and animated simplicity given to the characters and the environment in this shot create a very distinct effect. It's hard to put into words.
Lastly, one of my favorite scenes:
A dream sequence. The namesake flowers of evil are cover the ground, but are swept into the air as Nakamura turns around. This is the reason I loved the combination of realism and fantasy. The colors, the bright-and-dark contrast, and, of course, those creepy flowers are all made possible through animation, while the movements and expressions of the characters themselves remain true to what is real.
I thought it was beautiful.
The other main point is the pacing. Again, it's hard to explain how it feels, I guess, but rather than "slow" I thought it was "dreadful." Not dreadful like terrible, but dreadful like so tense and raw and petrifying that it's almost painful to watch. Part of it is the realism of the animation - it makes a viewer feel like they're really there, experiencing the fear and anxiety that the characters are feeling.
While a lot of the show is just quiet scenes, I feel that they really set up a lovely atmosphere many times: empty, lonely, solemn. The music adds to it a lot; often the background track is a constant drone, with occasional piano notes or low percussion. It only adds to the tension of the show -
"I saw you steal Saeki's gym clothes." The music is a low wind and echoing heartbeat-like noises. This scene progresses slowly, with a low amount of dialogue, but "less is more." Kasuga's terror at having been discovered grips the viewer, and there's no pretty face to escape from it; the scene continues, without a break in the atmosphere. Terrifying. Alternatively,
"..." The music is a progression of silent, ambient tones, similar to what you might find in a "Gymnopedie" by Erik Satie. Sustained notes, dark hues with the slowly-brightening sky; these all create a calm, quiet, melancholy mood. Having occurred right after an extremely intense scene, it's a stark contrast. The complete absence of dialogue and action may be monotonous, but to me, it conveys the characters' feelings perfectly. They have nothing to say, only in awe of their actions, and all they can do is silently walk together, pondering their actions and consequences as the next day arrives for them.
This is winding pretty long, but I hope you have a good understanding of why Flowers of Evil is a hipster thing that I like. Some final notes:
I've probably spoiled a lot of the story, yet I feel like I'm leaving a lot out. The characters and the plot are a compelling reason that I really love this show, but this post is getting really long, so I'll just say this: it's a show about the contrast between two things: people's expectations and impressions of each other, and what reality actually is.
The opening and ending themes are a big plus. There are four unique openings for the 13 episodes, each with a different singer and verse; three of them represent the three main characters, which is very cool. The ending has a few variations as well; it's a very creepy, synthesized tune that really fits the mood of the show.
If you want to watch: warnings for sexual harassment, abuse (kind of), language, and some violence. Definitely not for kids.
This is a blog on which I will be recording my thoughts about certain things that I like. Specifically, things that nobody likes.
Why the name "casual evil hipster"? well, a couple years ago, someone referred to me and my friends as the "evil hipster group." Having adopted that name, I have to clarify that I'm not actually a real hipster, with thick-rimmed glasses and such; therefore, "casual" works.
The word "hipster" means something different to a lot of people, but how I use it is "enjoying things that are unconventional." There are a lot of shows, foods, habits, etc. that I like and nobody else likes. Some that you may or may not see in the coming posts are the book Jane Eyre, the game osu!mania, or the musician Renard.
