kate

Boku Dake ga Inai Machi, Dungeon Meshi, Tonkatsu DJ Agetarō, more nominated

Manga by Giant Killing author centers on 31-year-old pro soccer player

As the progenitor of the “real robot genre,” every time a new Gundam series comes out the question of its realism comes up. Even though its robots tend to be brightly colored and increasingly full of weird weapons, the simple formula of mecha as tool of war endures. Just this past year, we’ve had both Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans, which follows a group of child soldiers, and Gundam Thunderbolt, which combines a gritty feel with a more hard science fiction feel. Which is more realistic? Does it matter?

I don’t intend to actually answer these questions. Rather, I’m bringing them up to try and start a discussion about the ways in which we try to position the idea of realism in something like Gundam. It’s not the first time I‘ve talked about it on this blog, either. With the first episode of Gundam Thunderbolt available, however, I can’t help but feel that it’s probably the Gundam a lot of the fans who revel in a certain image of realism have been looking for. One might call it the Macross Plus of the Gundam franchise in this respect. Its hard SF aspects, both in terms of presentation of technology and its expected character types, provide an interesting contrast to Iron-Blooded Orphans, which has a more contemporary “anime” look, cute girls and handsome boys and all. One can almost detect a generation gap in Thunderbolt vs. Iron-Blooded Orphans in terms of anime fandom; Thunderbolt feels like it came out of the science fiction conventions from which anime cons originally grew from.

In turn, Iron-Blooded Orphans seems more divisive in terms of what it tries to do with its realism, its young boys trying to carve a place in the world because of their circumstances as child soldiers. Of course, child soldiers aren’t new to Gundam. One could argue that the earliest protagonists of Gundam were child soldiers, but in this case it’s more the young guerilla archetype, seen also in Gundam 00. I do see Iron-Blooded Orphans get a bit more flack, and though my sample might be skewed by the fellow fans I interact with and observe, I think it has to do with how Iron-Blooded Orphans, unlike Thunderbolt, carries a kind of more “feminine” aesthetic that does not jive with more traditional images of realism as gritty.

Of course, grittiness does not automatically equal realism, but I think we’re trained to believe it. It’s one of the biggest trends of modern video games, and while there are plenty of games that push against it, many kids are growing up being taught by games and media that this is what “real” looks like. That said, Gundam Thunderbolt still has elements of the fantastic, and perhaps in the space between it and Iron-Blooded Orphans we can find versions of “realism” to satisfy all of those looking for it.

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The biggest problem with Anime Mirai is the titles are rarely streaming. What’s the best known short to come out of this project? Little Witch Academia which earned a great deal of critical acclaim, and became an Internet phenomenon and general darling of fandom. It was streaming on Studio Trigger’s YouTube page. And look at how well-known Trigger is now.

Take another project which gained praise and was even turned into a TV series: Death Billiards. Many people had never even seen the original short that turned into the Death Parade TV series.

Exposure for a project like this makes a huge difference and really isn’t that the point of the project?

All the help in the world would not have made Mechanical Fairies or Ryo mega-hits but they might not have slipped into utter obscurity if they had been streaming. And that seems to be the fate of a lot of these shorts. The Anime Mirai 2014 entries were strong enough to be superstars if they only could have been seen by more people.

Sadly, the Anime Mirai 2015 anime are still not streaming anywhere either. Like last years titles we have decided to draw some attention to these anime as they are usually a unique treat for fans looking for self-contained stories, new talent, and experimental ideas.

Aki no Kanade by J.C.Staff, dir. Youhei Suzuki

Aki Miyagawa is stuck in a rut after moving to Tokyo to be a professional takio drummer but still needing an additional part-time job to make ends meet. With only semi-success as she sees it, much of her younger passion for drumming has drained away. When an old teacher contacts her for help with the drum club, she returns to her hometown to face her family, remember the past, and perhaps renew her enthusiasm for drumming.

Aki comes out of this having completed a goal related to her passion and feeling good about. It still doesn’t making her a famous or “successful” takio drummer in Tokyo, but that seems no longer important in her view. I felt this was a great, strong idea but presented in a subtle way. Plus, it ends on a high note without telling us what the future holds.

The drum scenes Aki no Kanade are of course a central focus and they are really delightful to watch.

 This was undoubtedly the strongest of the four titles. It had the visuals, storyline, and characters that make it stand out from the pack. The fact that it dealt with more adult worries and concerns made it feel a bit more exceptional. Aki is comfortable enough that she is not struggling but it is clear that she knows she could be doing so much more. The problem is she sees no clear path to that higher level of success. That sort of low-grade depression and hopelessness can affect even the most successful people so you bet you bottom dollar that the average person can know it all to well. Her journey is distinctly resonant with someone like me who feels slightly trapped in my life despite not really having any major crises crushing me.

There were lots of hooks in the story that could have been their own story. Her estrangement from her father, her potential romantic paramour, the gradual disintegration of her childhood friendships, a major training arc with the students, the loss of identity of a small town being merged into a larger conglomerate, and the bond of a student and her mentor all had the potential to be the main thrust of the story. But they only come up as much as they need to flesh out who Aki is as she struggles with her professional malaise. Showing them all gives the audience a glimpse of Aki that is greater than just her job but it also shows why all of those elements contribute to her current situation without letting any of those threads derail the main story. In the end it is a tale of how one woman regains her passion and everything else is in the service of that.

In the end other than the Aki’s head space there really is no major resolution to the other aspects of the story. Nor does there need to be. Aki’s life was rich with achievements and problems before her return to her hometown and they will all still be there when she returns to her life in Tokyo. This was just the singular short story of how a trip home reinvigorates her. You could turn this into a full 13 episode TV series but it works just as well as it is. A sweet little movie that tells its story well and then takes a bow.

Robot Kaa-san (Happy ComeCome)
by SynergySP, dir. Yumiko Suda

Hiroshi, a lonely young man, decides to buy a cute maid robot to take care of him and his large, empty house but the company instead brings him a mom model android. They convince him to keep her for a test run. This motherly machine gets to the core of what has broken Hiroshi’s spirit.

 Last year I never did find a subbed version of Paroru’s Future Island when we reviewed the Anime Mirai’s title last year. (Of course I find a subbed version of it as I write this.) This year the show I could not find subs for was Happy ComeCome. Thankfully as a showcase of visual artistry many of the Anime Mirai entries lay out their narrative in a way where you can understand the story without knowing a word of Japanese. So we are doing this impression just on what would could pick up. If we missed a little please forgive us. We did the best we can.

If this had been a story about cute robot maid healing a young teenage boy’s heart it would be a very different (and probably more commercially viable) story. That fact that the android is an Osaka mama is a distinct subversion of the genre. The problem is that not every subversion makes a story better. Sometimes people go with the tried and true formula because many of the alternatives are not as effective. In this case I don’t think Happy ComeCome utterly falls on its face but it also does not really do anything interesting with the formula either. While making the mama robot the device that changes the protagonist’s life removes the creepy sexual subservience of the Magical Girlfriend gimmick it does little to elevate beyond that at the same time.

Now just because a premise is an old saw does not mean it can’t be fun. Overall the idea is executed in a competent manner but no more than that (as far as I can tell.) Hiroshi has a fairly tragic story when you pick it apart but I got most of it through inference since my copy was not subbed. I’m wondering if I had the actual details as opposed to the general gist I would have felt a bit more empathy for the character or would it still come of just as plainly. I’m really thinking that unless you have a decent understanding of Japanese your probably better off waiting for the subs before you watch this one. It still might be flat after that but I’m guessing it will only have its full impact then.

Also it is worth nothing that the salesman who pushes the robot mama on Hiroshi has the nervous habit of constantly playing with the handkerchief in his suit pocket. I mostly saw it as a little flourish to mark him as a bit of a flimflam man but I know Kate thought it made it seem more like a potential serial killer. I understand what they were going for but after she pointed it out I can’t help but see what she was saying. I wonder if it is something that would have been mitigated if we had subtitles or if it is just something that could not be avoided when it was animated like that.

The story was easy to understand and for the most part I followed it well because the visuals were there to back it up. One of the best told scenes, Hiroshi’s past with his human mother, needs no dialogue at all to follow its emotional repercussions.

That being said, unfortunately, I was unconvinced that Hiroshi had really learned something in the time we see him during this short. There just wasn’t enough interaction or substance to what we saw to make me believe he did truly care about Mama.

Ongaku Shojo by Studio Deen, dir. Kenichi Ishigura

Haru is an energetic oddball who enters her new boarding school like a hurricane. Haru’s shy straight-laced roommate, Eri, finds herself put-upon when Haru discovers Eri has secretly been uploading songs to the Internet. Haru wears down Eri and convinces her to enter a singing competition despite Eri’s crippling stage fright.

My biggest complaint with this short (I have many!) is why was it even part of Anime Mirai? It is based on a new and growing (and seemingly popular) multimedia franchise. The idol girls and fan-service premise is an evergreen money-maker. And yet, this is part of an animation project with, while not always good, a repertoire of short stories that try something a little bit different, something that might not work in a long form, or simply something that getting funding for would be difficult. It is just a disappointing use of the project.

That said, I fully expect this will not be the last I hear of Ongaku Shojo.

 As I have mentioned in the past there is a unique joy in watching things with Kate. When she is totally into a show you can palpably feel the excitement she radiates. Conversely when she really hates something it is equally apparent in her body language without her saying a word. Sufficed to say I was quite aware that she was not having any of this show. Kate’s disgust with the show was sadly more entertaining than the work itself.

First of all Haru Chitose’s hair is a hot mess. I know that is just a superficial complaint but indulge me for a second. A few hair ornaments can easily give some flair to a character but her crazy bird’s nest is just as distracting and aggravating as her character. Eri Kumagai is nowhere as annoying but she is also sort of bland which means she does little to counterbalance her partner. Since the main appeal of the story is supposed to be the girls this is sort of doomed to be a failure.

But all of this makes perfect sense if you realize the show’s pedigree under Kenichi Ishigura, Norimitsu Urasaki, and Kana Yamada. All three of them worked on Sakura Trick. Sakura Trick’s whole gimmick was it was the fluffkin yuri manga where there girls actually kissed. It was not the serious affair that something like Aoi Hana but it was not all teasing like Maria-sama. Ongaku Shojo is clearly supposed to have the same appeal. While Haru and Eri are never making out they share the same bed despite the fact that they share a dorm room that is bigger than my apartment. The problem is that I can’t see why Eri would want Haru as a casual acquaintance let alone a musical and/or romantic partner.

So weak characters, a bog standard story, generic idol music, and no interesting hook make Ongaku Shojo an utterly forgettable idol show with an extremely mild provocative hook. This is a title that would normally just be an instantly forgettable show but it stands out when it is in a prestige slot like that of the Anime Mirai lineup.

Kumi to Tulip by Tezuka Productions, dir. Makoto Tezuka

In a future where technology has taken over every aspect of life, an old artist and a young girl bond over finding a tulip growing in a field of artificial flowers. When the old man has a heart attack protecting the bud, the girl takes it upon herself to nurture the young plant in hopes that it will inspire the bedridden man.

 There was no subs for Kumi to Tulip but there was a good reason for that. It turns out that there is no dialog in Kumi to Tulip. It is a story told exclusively through the visuals.

Kumi to Tulip is OK. Nothing more and nothing less. It neither offends or entertains in any extreme manner. It has a fairly standard set of themes. Praise for the perseverance of life and nature, the importance of youth learning from the wizened, and the power of the cycle of life with a bit of a Osamu Tezuka tribute of the side. The main problem is that if a really good Tezuka anime is equal to the best Pixar film then this is the anime equivalent of a mediocre DreamWorks movie. You will watch it, maybe discuss it a little afterwards, and then completely forget about it a month later. You probably won’t even remember you watched it after a year unless distinctly pressed to remember.

The odd thing is that it is not utterly pedestrian or workman like. The fact that it has no dialog means that it is forced to be very universal and expressive in its visual story telling. You have actual Back to the Future style hover boards unlike the deathtraps you keep hearing about in the news. They even have some very abstract musical sequences to spice things up. The problem is that is all sort of blends together. None of it is done poorly but it lacks the flair I have come to expect for something from Anime Mirai. The big hoverboard race at the beginning is never incompetent but is also is never really that exciting either. If many ways that whole scene pretty much sums up the short very succinctly.

Sadly this feels like a cheap TV special as opposed a lush mini film and that is a shame.

Taking up the challenge of telling a story without any dialogue is to be commended. On that front the short succeeded quite well, there could be no doubt as to how the characters felt or what their actions were.

The story is one of the younger generation coming to understand, respect, and then be inspired by the older. The girl is able to rally the other children in the park into helping her nurture other flower buds making everyone step away from their technology for a time.

There are rough patches in this story like some odd humor or the way too long hoverboard race at the beginning. And ultimately it ends a bit strangely, too.

This short reminded me that a wordless Japanese and French co-production The Red Turtle will be coming out in 2016.

 Overall I was a little saddened that I felt this was the weakest batch of Anime Mirai titles I have watched so far. I only really like one of the titles and two of them were sort of bland. The only title that was an absolute stinker was Ongaku Shojo but it was pretty awful. That said I am still looking forward to the 2016 entries. First of all I thought Aki no Kanade was really strong and that gives me a good amount of faith in the project as a whole. Secondly I still think the project is extremely valuable. The chance for new talent to play with experiments that might not normally get funding is very important to health of the industry. I’m willing to sit through some disasters and flawed works for the potential benefits.

Also it is worth nothing that there are some great premises for the shows for 2106. UTOPA probably wins the award for story that is 100% different from what you would expect from the sample picture, Colorful Ninja Iromaki and Kaze no Matasaburō look like great family entertainment, and Kacchikenee looks like it could be a solid little horror story.

Hopefully we will have nothing but positive things to say about this year’s shows.

With the exception of Ongaku Shojo, I found something to like in all the shorts this year. However, they weren’t as memorable to me as past years and I’m not sure any of them really made me excited for the next projects of these creators.

Filed under: Anime, Comedy, Drama, Family/Childrens, Reviews, Science Fiction Tagged: Aki no Kanade, Anime Mirai, Happy ComeCome, Kumi to Tulip, Ongaku Shojo, Robot Kaa-san

dollychops:

David Bowie, ★

Preview of Tribute to Otomo exhibition - Part 1 (Part 2)
Angouleme comic book festival - France

Tributes by : Nicolas Bannister, Joel Jurion, Dominique Bertail, Enrico Marini, Ludovic Debeurme, Manuele Fior, Virginie Augustin, Victor Santos, and Luigi Critone.

Poster by Katsuhiro Otomo.

Where to find fried chicken, on plates and in sandwiches, at restaurants across the city

One could argue that fried chicken is America’s greatest contribution to world gastronomy: golden brown and crunchy on the outside, flavorful and oozing juices on the inside. In New York City, it’s available in a dizzying number of permutations, now including an Indian-spiced version straight from the streets of Mumbai, a vinegary Dominican option, and a skillet-fried riff that marks the return of a beloved Harlem chef. As the country’s foremost comfort food, fried chicken has never been needed more.

"This is a potential nightmare scenario."

Restaurateurs in Williamsburg and Bushwick are scared by the news that the MTA is considering the idea of shutting down the L train between Brooklyn and Manhattan for as many as three years  — and they're already planning a meeting to talk about what might happen. Members of the Brooklyn Allied Bars and Restaurants, a group of businesses in North Brooklyn, have been emailing each other since Gothamist report came out yesterday, and a leader of the group, The Woods owner David Rosen, has been getting lots of texts and emails from business owners who are upset about the news. They're organizing a sit-down with elected officials later this month in hopes of finding out more information, he says. "This is a potential nightmare scenario," Rosen says.

Such a long shutdown is high stakes for restaurants off the L train. Previous shutdowns have proven that business declines significantly without it, several restaurant owners in Williamsburg and Bushwick tell Eater. Rosen recalls a time when it was down over Black Friday, one of the busiest weekends of the year. At a BABAR meeting afterward, some restaurants and bars said that their sales were down a good 80 percent from the year before. Tyson Ho, owner of Bushwick barbecue joint Arrogant Swine off the Morgan stop, says he saw about a 40 percent drop in business during the six-week shutdown last spring — and the few weekends afterward, as people slowly started to remember the L train was working again. The area around his restaurant isn't residential, so many of his customers are tourists or coming in from Manhattan, Ho says. "I was just getting calls just every single week," Ho explains. "'Hey, we’re trying to get to you, me and my husband, or whoever wants to throw a big party. But is there any other train besides the L?' Well, no. There’s not."

Bars and restaurants in Williamsburg or off the Morgan Avenue stop in particular get hit the hardest, says Matthew Webber, who has ownership in several places in both Williamsburg and Bushwick, including Soft Spot, The Narrows, King Noodle, and Birdy's. In the past, no weekend L train service from Manhattan has meant about a 30 percent drop in weekend business at his Williamsburg businesses, Webber says. The demographic in the neighborhood has gotten older and more affluent, meaning the younger people going to bars travel in on the weekends, he says. Morgan Avenue, another destination spot with less neighborhood business, also suffers. "In Bushwick, when trains are down, your demographic gets stuck on the weekends. It doesn't necessarily affect you," Webber says. "Williamsburg gets brutalized."

Even with neighborhood business, the lack of L train service from Manhattan can have lingering impact on Bushwick restaurants and bars, Webber says. For example, late night business dwindles slightly, since many people stopping in are passing by on their way home from Manhattan for a final drink, he says. And businesses like coffee shops can suffer, too, says Esther Bell, owner of bar and coffee shop The West. Much of her morning business comes from commuters walking to the L train, she says, and the lack of service could impact that. She and other businesses on Grand Street have been fighting for years for the MTA to open a G train entrance near Union Avenue and Hope Street, and she's hoping that would curb some of the losses. "The city should at least do that if they’re going to shut down the L," Bell says.

Kevin Adey, the owner of Faro, says he's slightly dubious that the MTA will ultimately make the decision to shut down the L train for three years. People spend more to rent in Williamsburg than in Manhattan, and developers have been spending millions of dollars to build commercial hubs in Bushwick. Those are people who should have more power to keep things going, Adey says. "There’s so much money involved in that system — to break it, would be amazing to me," Adey notes. "It would really stun me for it to go that long." In the case of a shutdown, Adey says a surprising amount of his customers arrive to the Bushwick Italian restaurant by Uber or yellow cab, and based on his past experiences, a lot of the residents in Bushwick and Ridgewood would still be coming in to eat. Still, it's not something he wants to happen. "It absolutely scares the shit out of me," he says.

Most businesses don't have a year and a half of cushion to wait out the storm.

Rosen and BABAR are holding their breath before they make any requests to the MTA. All they're working off of so far is what they've heard in the press, Rosen says, and they want to talk to community groups and local elected officials to learn more about what's happening before jumping into official suggestions, he adds. "At minimal, we’ll get everyone in a room and talk about it — if it is true that this is going to happen," Rosen says. "I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion." The restaurants Eater spoke with realize that the MTA has to make fixes for the L train, and regardless of what sort of service disruption happens, they'll likely be impacted negatively. Many of them are just hoping they'll get some say what in how it happens. "Most businesses don't have a year and a half of cushion to wait out the storm," Ho says. "Places like Duane Reade and Starbucks can survive. Businesses like me don't."

A new Bay Area restaurant is dedicating itself to America's lowliest drunk food. Nachoria, as it was all but required to be called, will elevate the standard Tostitos-and-shredded-Kraft microwaved fare, however, by taking a Chipotle-fied approach: Customers pick a meat (like pollo and carne asada, carnitas, shrimp, and even veggies or ceviche), and instead of heavy refried beans and guac, Nachoria tops it with a housemade cheese sauce, fire-roasted red peppers, caramelized onions, green onions, and queso fresco.

Who wants some? #nachos

A photo posted by Nachoria #1 - Burlingame (@nachoria) on Jan 8, 2016 at 5:32pm PST

The founder is Nick Swinmurn — the guy who created Zappos and now spends his days finding cool things to do with all that money. To date, those things have included buying a minor-league soccer team and opening a fitness club, and now there's Nachoria, which bills itself as a "Purveyor of the Triangular Arts." Swinmurn is apparently something of a nacho enthusiast: He actually owns a trademark for the word Notchos, and according to SFGate, he's been chewing over this nacho-inspired restaurant idea since 1998. Right now there's just the one location, which opened last week in Burlingame, California, but Swinmurn hasn't ruled out expanding once they "get it right here first." Can anything about an all-nacho restaurant possibly be wrong?

[SFGate]

Read more posts by Clint Rainey

Filed Under: great ideas, california, nachoria, news

Smorgasburg has a low acceptance rate. About three people apply to the wildly popular market daily, and after all the previous vendors commit to returning, just about a dozen spots are available for the April opening. Only 10 to 20 percent of applicants get invited in for tastings, which are scheduled in Brooklyn Flea's Crown Heights offices throughout the winter. And even fewer make it into the market. Some vendors have gone on to quit their day jobs and open their own restaurants. One Smorgasburg vendor, Ramen Burger, achieved a considerable amount of viral fame because of the market.

Since Smorgasburg launched in 2011, the tastings themselves have been held in relative secrecy — they're private to keep the pressure as low as possible for the already nervous new vendors. "For them, it's their dream," co-founder Eric Demby says. "You see their hands shaking." This year, Demby and co-founder Jonathan Butler invited Eater into a day with three tastings to see what it's like. Things are more established now, and as popularity has grown, applicants are increasingly more trained chefs with experience in high pressure situations. But as Elliott Anderson, a co-founder of Smorgasburg vendor Big Mozz says, "Still, the stakes are pretty high. Whether it's your first booth or your second or your third."

Day: Monday, January 4, four months before the debut of Smorgasburg

Location: Brooklyn Flea office break room and Berg'n, 1000 Dean St.

Tasters: Eric Demby, Jonathan Butler, Director of Operations Rob Blackman, Director of Marketing Georgia Frierson, and Kyle Huebbe, who works on strategy and management.

11:30 a.m. First up: The veteran vendors, Big Mozz

Nick Solares

Anderson and Big Mozz executive chef Jimmy Warren have been in the Berg'n space prepping for their pizza tasting for a while. Since they need an oven, they're using the Samesa kitchen and are having the tasting in Berg'n, which is unusual for the Smorgasburg taste test. Usually, they're held in the break room in the Brooklyn Flea office.

Also unlike typical tastings, Warren and Anderson have been in front of the tasting crew several times already, including a few times for other pizza ideas. Since they joined the market last year, they've been reliable vendors with both Big Mozz, a stand that serves freshly made mozzarella on a stick, and Mozz Sticks, a stand with fried mozzarella sticks. The company started as a sauce producer called Atlantic Ave., and when the market needed a pizza vendor, Demby and Butler encouraged Big Mozz to combine their products and give pizza a shot.

Nick Solares

Anderson and Big Mozz co-founder Matthew Gallira initially bet on Smorgasburg as their start into the food business. They just recently quit their day jobs to grow the company, close to a year after starting at Smorgasburg. Despite having a relationship with the Flea already, this taste test was a big step for them in making the business sustainable. Demby and Butler are still evaluating them alongside all the other competitors, and it's no guarantee they'll get a spot. "This one’s more important because it gives us more access to a market share," Warren says. "At Smorgasburg, there's no one that does pizza anymore....If we were to get this, it's the potential to have instead of two stalls, seven stalls. For us, especially for the growth that we want, it's very important."

Nick Solares

At 12 p.m., the tasting crew goes down to Berg'n for the first meal of the day. As Jimmy finishes making a fresh pie, they chat with Anderson about logistics of the pie making, including the cost of each mobile wood-fire pizza oven (about $24,000), where they'll keep their supplies (a walk-in fridge may be needed), and the dangers of making pizza outdoors (high temperatures will make the dough rise too much). Anderson notes:  "I was asking my dad, does it make sense to buy $70,000 worth of pizza ovens? He says, 'I mean, some people buy $70,000 cars.'' Demby speculates that the cost of the ovens alone could be earned back in about a month.

More than 10,000 people come to Smorgasburg on a given day, and some 35,000 people have shown up on good days, so professionalism — and adapting to cooking outdoors — is just as important as the menu. Tastings bring some of those questions out. The first pizza, a classic Margherita, is received well, but Demby uses a fork to eat the first bite of his slice, where the pizza is slightly soggier. "The crust should be firmer, in theory," he later notes, using his hands to mimic people carrying it outside. On another pie, loaded with ricotta, hot sausage, and broccoli rabe, the toppings slide off as Frierson picks up her slice. "That should be instructive," Demby says.

Nick Solares

The questions are often intended to hear how much chefs have thought about conditions and how committed they are to the product, according to Demby. "It's so easy to get lazy in there and make a Country Time powder lemonade, whereas if someone has a brand they're trying to create, and it's based on sourcing and being serious, they're going to stick with that over time," Demby later explains. Anderson and Warren acknowledge that things will need to be tweaked in real time. They've been studying pizza intensely, learning from many local wood-fired pizza makers, including Bruno. "Every day, depending on the temperature and humidity, we'll change the recipe," Anderson tells the table.

Four pies later and already getting full, the group grabs the remaining pizza for the rest of the office and heads back up. "We usually don't do one every day," Demby says of tastings. "It gets difficult physically."

1:00 p.m. Second Tasting: Izakaya, a new East Village restaurant, looking to get to the next level

Nick Solares

The office already smells like fried food when the tasters get back. Three people from Izakaya, a small year-old Japanese restaurant in the East Village, have been cooking up their take on chicken and rice using deep fryers, set up in the Brooklyn Flea break room. It's not often that already-established restaurants apply to be vendors at Smorgasburg, but when they do, they're required to bring an item that would only be sold at the market.

Izakaya owner Yudai Kanayama, who used to sell vintage clothing at Brooklyn Flea, hopes that gaining a spot at Smorgasburg will bring more people to the restaurant. A mention as one of Ligaya Mishan's top ten restaurants in 2015 brought more people in, Kanayama says, but it still feels like a new place. "I think we are getting popular," he says. "We need to be even more popular."

Nick Solares

Kanayama and two Izakaya employees — all wearing vintage gear or wide-brimmed hats — set down plastic bowls lined with salad, rice, fried yellow potatoes, peppers, and fried chicken with a sweet, sticky sauce. As the Flea crew digs in with chopsticks, they question Kanayama. Why do you want to be here? Do you have experience with markets? What are some other Smorgasburg vendors you like? Do you know what your booth would look like?

Nick Solares

Kanayama practically mumbles some of his responses, but he ultimately has answers for nearly all the questions. Their food is different, he adds. The new chef at the restaurant, who created the dish, uses a special recipe to coat the chicken that's not like typical Japanese fried chicken, Kanayama says. "We don't use flour," he says. "It's not regular karage or tempura." Demby explains later that he likes to get the vendors talking generally about their restaurant and food. "You'll get a sense for how serious they are as a chef," he says.

The Izakaya cooks pack up, and Blackman, the director of operations, takes Kanamaya aside to thank him and explain the timetable. It's competitive for them, especially since they need one of the coveted spot with access to electricity for their deep fryers. But Kanamaya — and all other new vendors — won't find out if he'll get a booth until March, just a month before Smorgasburg's debut.

1:30 p.m. Third Tasting: Kotti Brooklyn, the unknown entity looking for a chance

Nick Solares

Kotti Brooklyn exemplifies an unknown entity that Smorgasburg might invite in, Demby says, even if the application was a little quirky. Their bio was longer than Demby typically prefers — "shows someone might have too much theory," he says — and they listed Smorgasburg as a location on their mock-up website. "A bit presumptuous," Demby says.

Still, the website looked professional. Co-founders Erkan Emre and Michael Stark had their story about Berliner street food, a version of the well-known Mediterranean diet that Turkish immigrants brought to Germany. There were even renderings of what a potential brick-and-mortar restaurant would look like, which is rare for applicants. "They definitely got invited in," Demby says. "They have their shit together. They have a menu. And the menu looked delicious to me."

Smorgasburg receives applications from mostly new concepts because it's a good way for people with new products to test them out. It's a lot of hard work to be a part of it, and each day costs $300 regardless of money earned, but it's still cheaper than opening a new restaurant. Plus, Smorgasburg takes care of all the promotions and marketing, and vendors don't have to worry about people showing up — people always show up. "The increasing cost of real estate is almost prohibitive to start off with a project that is brick-and-mortar," Emre says. "For us, it was almost a no brainer to say Smorsgasburg."

Nick Solares

Kotti has no store. Kotti has a brand and a menu and the team has hosted six tastings with about 500 people each, but there's still nowhere you can get the group's doner, which is a sandwich with focaccia -like bread, spit roasted chicken, and fresh veggies. Smorgasburg is an opportunity to show people what they're about and hopefully show investors something tangible, says Emre, who currently works as a real estate developer. He and Stark are both from Germany and missed the ubiquitous street food from home. "This is really our proof of concept to see how many people we can draw in," he tells the tasters.

The tasters start off the session by warning that they may not finish off the food; they're getting pretty full at this point. "Don't be insulted," Butler says. "Everything will be fair," Demby adds. Still, everybody takes a generous bite of the doner. Although the bread is packed with zucchini, tomato, and chicken, it holds together fairly well — a point that Frierson notes. Kotti is intended to be food on-the-go, just as it is in Germany. Demby has lived in Germany and recognized Kotti's version quickly. Butler's wife, who is also German, is called in at some point to try it as well. "It's really good, it's very authentic," Demby says. "I don't know if I've had one of these sober. Usually it's really late."

Nick Solares

During the tasting, the crew asks a lot of questions they asked of the other vendors — where the bread is from, where they sold, what they're looking for, etc — and both of Emre and Stark answer confidently. Butler points out that the size of the sandwiches may be a bit big for Smorgasburg. "A lot of people go to the market, they want to sample several different things," he says. "If they get this, they're not eating anything else." But the duo responds with a potential solution of a smaller version, made by cutting the pita in half and selling it for about $5 instead of $10. Turns out, Stark has a lot of experience in the food business. He has been working at Fresh Direct for years, in operations and in prepared meal research and development, a fact that's received positively. Demby says he's not worried about them dealing with operational details like insurance or certificates.

Demby and Butler say they have to run to a 2 p.m. meeting, and Emre and Stark start to pack up their equipment and food. They both felt that the meeting was "overall very very positive," Emre says. They're crossing their fingers that they'll get in, but if they don't, they'll try other routes, like food trucks or pop-ups. It's their dream, and feedback has already been so positive that it would be a shame to abandon it, Emre says. "If it doesn't work out with Smorgasburg, it is not in our DNA to give up," he says. "We'll make it work."

Just in time for her selection as comics industry Person of the Year, Noelle Stevenson has been announced as the creator of the key art for the 2016 MoCCA Arts Festival. MoCCA and Stevenson go back a ways: back in 2013 her student piece "Knight of Swords" was featured in MoCCA's Student Scholarship Competition. Stevenson was just a student at the Maryland Institute College of Art at the time. She's gone on to become a regular exhibitor at MoCCA, and hopefully in 2016 as well.

If you're a faithful Beat reader, you know the past year has been filled with discussions of the economics of running a comics news website. This talk was prompted by an unprecedented run of comics sites closing down or losing key personnel. I summed up a lot of my thoughts back in September, pointing out that the realities of the web make running any kind of independent site very difficult these days.

A few months ago on Twitter, a number of manga translators and readers threw their hats into the ring to discuss the persistent issue of “authenticity” vs. “localization.” The central point of argument was whether the fact that the English translation of the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure manga kept antagonist Dio Brando’s signature catch phrase untranslated (MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA / USELESS USELESS USELESS USELESS) is a sign of faithfulness, Japanophilia, or something else entirely.

There’s no real right side to all of this. As the Reverse Thieves explained well, there are many facets to consider, and translation is more an art than a science. For example, people who argue that translations should be as localized as possible so as to remove the sense that it comes from another language would assume that the primary audience is a broad, general readership. What if it isn’t, however? Academic translations for instance tend to be filled with footnotes and marks and other things because you’re supposed to be fully explaining the nuance of meaning through translation.

What’s even more fascinating, however, is seeing the problem of translation from the English to Japanese side, and the challenge that is posed to English translators in Japan. For example, let’s look at one of the on-going controversies within this greater Japanese to English translation debate: whether or not to include Japanese honorifics in English translations. After all, while “-san” might be already known to fans of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and other similar works, for the most part it’s the realm of the manga fan, so to speak. When the decision is made to remove them, a translation either has to compensate for the loss of immediate information pertaining to how two characters relate to each other through a more liberal translation, or ignore that aspect entirely.

What about English to Japanese? From that perspective, the problem is completely flipped around. Suddenly you go from a language with no honorifics to one where they’re a part of everyday life. Let’s take a movie like Gone with the Wind. How would you translate Rhett Butler’s speech? The official translation has him use “Ore,” possibly to show that he’s both masculine and skirts standards of politeness and pomp. Is that the right decision?

If you were in charge of translating Gone with the Wind to Japanese, what honorifics would Rhett have to use when talking to other characters, if any? Would they change over the course of the movie? The change or removal of honorific usage to determine the progression of a relationship between two characters is a classic trope of manga and anime, and something English translators have to be constantly wary of (as is switching from last name to first name), but here with Gone with the Wind it’s potentially something that the translator has to build into the story where it once did not exist. The decision could be made to ignore honorifics specifically, but then a lot still has to be done to adapt characteristics and speech patterns to particular personalities. Rather than having to subtract, the English to Japanese translator has to consider additional components if they want to go for a “natural”-sounding language. Or do you just get rid of them all because it takes place in the US, or to show again that Rhett doesn’t have much use for politeness?

Of course, that’s not to say that Japanese to English translators also don’t have to create what ostensibly isn’t there to get the meaning of a line across. In both cases, there are things to be gained and lost in the decision to interpret lines in certain specific ways.

There are even multiple different translations of Gone with the Wind, each of them taking different liberties. Rhett’s famous “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn,” has been variously translated as 「俺には関係ない」(Ore ni wa kankei nai, “This has no relation to me”) and 「俺の知った事か」(Ore no shitta koto ka, “I have nothing to do with that”). Notably, both do not bother to preserve the cultural meaning of “damn,” nor the “Frankly my dear” part. The frankness is in the lack of formality and the general implied rudeness of the sentence construction.

Suffice it to say, translation isn’t easy, and the decision to keep or remove cultural elements is a unique challenge that perhaps few other fields have to contend with. Whether you’re a translator or just a reader, it might be helpful to express how you feel about the work that goes into translating.

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“Spirit Seeker” animated feature film project by Sun Creature Studio (The Reward) and Norlum studio (Song of the Sea, Long Way North), directed by Bo Juhl Nielsen. Fuck yeah !

High Street on Market's Dutch-style stroopwafel.

It might snow in New York today — which means, thankfully, it's time to go hard on comfort foods! Fortunately, the city's restaurants and bakeries have recently introduced some excellent new cookies, made with ingredients like spicy Yuzukoshō, anadama bread crumbs, and puffed-rice cereal. They're all certainly worth seeking out this season, to be taken home and enjoyed under a giant blanket, with a cup of tea.

High Street on Market's Stroopwafel
Price: $5
Pastry chef Sam Kincaid and chef-owner Eli Kulp drew inspiration from the latter's Dutch family — but this stroopwafel is far from traditional. In lieu of caramel filling, Kincaid uses spiced-milk jam and head baker Alex Bois's anadama bread crumbs for the wafel cookie, making this a true collaboration.

Milk Bar's Rice & Spice
Price: $3.75 for one (in stores), $25 for a tin of six (online)
Christina Tosi and model Karlie Kloss have collaborated on a range of cookies, which taste excellent despite their hyperhealthy profiles. Their latest is the Rice & Spice, which includes crunchy puffed-rice cereal, oats, brown sugar, and cinnamon — like a cross between granola and a gingersnap cookie. It just so happens to contain no wheat, dairy, or nuts, if you're really committed to eating healthily in the New Year.

Ovenly's Rosemary-Honey-Butter Cookie
Price: $2.75
Greenpoint-based Ovenly's salted-chocolate-chip and peanut-butter cookies have become ubiquitous in New York coffee shops, and for good reason — they're fantastic. But while the bakery has a booming wholesale business, it reserves select treats for just its retail locations. This new cookie is one of them, and it's made with a combination of almond and all-purpose flours. Like Ovenly's famed salted chocolate-chip cookie, it has both sweet and savory notes.

Té Company's Pineapple Linzer
Price: $3.25
This tiny new West Village tea shop specializes in oolongs, but chef Frederico Ribeiro (a Per Se alum) is making some next-level snacks. His pineapple linzer cookie, a riff on a traditional Taiwanese pineapple cake, is made with spicy Yuzukoshō, a Japanese-pepper seasoning. Try to go early: There are only ten available per day.

Sadelle's Oatmeal-Raisin Cookie
Price: $3
This cookie actually disappeared from Sadelle's menu for a while, but thanks to a plum shout-out from New York Times critic Pete Wells ("one of the best oatmeal cookies in existence"), it returned to the pastry case this week. Baker Melissa Weller says she aimed to create a cookie that's crispy at the edges, and thick, soft, and chewy in the middle, so you can get both textures in one bite. Weller actually ages the dough for four days before baking and uses Quaker Old-Fashioned Oats.

Mah Ze Dahr's Chocolate Sable
Price: $15 for a dozen, sold online
Keep an eye out for a new treat from Umber Ahmad: She's preparing to debut her rich chocolate-sable shortbread cookie, made with Valrhona cocoa, salted butter, brown sugar, bittersweet-chocolate chunks, and Maldon salt. "I really love the balance that we strike between the sweetness of the sugar, the bitterness of the chocolate, and the hint of saltiness from the Maldon salt," she says. Plus: Once Ahmad's brick-and-mortar bakery opens, she'll sell her sables by the piece, too.

Read more posts by Sierra Tishgart

Filed Under: grub guides, cookies, dessert, high street on market, mah ze dahr, milk bar, new york, ovenly, sadelle's, sweets, te company

Ellie, 6 January 2016:

My close friend of 50 years has always been supportive. She started gaining weight 25 years ago. It became worse 20 years ago when she moved to the U.S. Despite a few (ill-advised) attempts at weight control, the bulk keeps growing. She visits me annually. Her face remains pleasant-looking but I find her body, limbs, and trunk painful to look at. She recently retired as a doctor, puts efforts into getting “in shape,” acknowledges that she’s fat, but doesn’t acknowledge obesity. She says that she has only enough energy to stop gaining weight, not enough to lose some. She attributes her weight gain to In Vitro Fertilization treatments, menopause, stopping smoking long ago, and various drugs she must take to control some medical problems and depression. I have trouble accepting those excuses especially considering her medical knowledge and experience. I’m starting to feel disgust, and fear showing repulsion at her next visit. I don’t comment but she probably picks up my negative vibes. She says she’s trying to love herself and her body. How can I learn to just accept her body or blank it out of conscious vision? Worried Friend

Dear Worried Friend,

The relentlessness with which fat people insist on existing on planet earth without making a litany of constant apologies for their repulsive bodies and demonstrating continuously that they are sorry for not removing themselves from the world’s gaze is, in a word, selfish.

Your “supportive” friend obviously isn’t supporting your need to have her companionship without bringing her unmitigated flab into the equation by being physically present in this universe. 

She’s a doctor, but how can she know for certain whether the list of entirely understandable and medically sound reasons she has for not being the size you desire her to be is the real reason she’s an abomination to your delicate visage? Just because she’s lived her life in her body and knows how it works and what it’s capable of doesn’t mean she can just write off that thing you read on the internet about lazy, shameless fat people.

You don’t want a friend who is loves herself the way she is, which would be an indication of self-awareness, self-development and self-acceptance, qualities anyone can and should abhor because fat. A real friend would hate herself into the bikini body of your dreams!

But your friend will undoubtedly continue to selfishly live her life without thought for how the appearance of her body makes you feel. Concentrate on trying to un-see her, perhaps by removing your own eyeballs. It will be the most selfless thing you can do, and it will send a strong message to those who need it most.

Client: Please use a font that is more thinner. Our font is not that thick. Also remove the unnecessary circle at the end of the sentence. 

Me: You mean… the period? 

Client: I don’t care what you designers call it, it is unsightly. Delete it. 

Getting up in the mornings can sometimes feel like a daunting task—sometimes preparing yourself breakfast, even just a simple bowl of cereal, even more so. Wouldn’t all be better off if we could just build a machine out of Lego to do it all for us instead? Probably. I look forward to our Lego vending machine future.

Read more...

By Meredith Lepore

If one of your new year's resolutions is to read more, then you're in luck because Emma Watson is starting a book club.

But she's not quite sure what to call it yet, and took to Twitter to get some ideas:

Hi Team, ❤️ I want to start a feminist book club but so far have only brainstormed 'Feminist Book Club' and 'Emma Watson Book Club'.

— Emma Watson (@EmWatson) January 6, 2016

Though The Cut came up with some pretty humorous names (we love Is That Your Feminist Book? It’s Her-MINEy Now Book Club), Watson settled on Twitter user @emilyfabb’s suggestion of Our Shared Shelf. Potential members of the group include Taylor Swift and J.K. Rowling. Whoa. Oprah better watch her back.

This is just Watson's latest move to help promote gender equality. From her game-changing UN speech at the UN about the global HeForShe campaign last year to her kick-ass speech at Davos on the low presence of ladies in the audience, clearly the next step is launching a feminist book club!

"It is my belief that there is a greater understanding than ever that women need to be equal participants in our homes, in our societies, in our governments, and in our work places," Watson said. "Women share this planet 50/50 and they are under-represented, their potential astonishingly untapped."

She is already kicking off the year on a strong note, so we can’t wait to see what happens next.

More From Levo:
• College Grad Correspondent: "Why I've Stopped Focusing on the Future Me"
• What to Ask Yourself Before Moving to a New City With Your Partner
• So, Your Bonus Is Less Than Expected. Now What?

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Alcott Grimsley the handsome devil. Commission! Character by http://blog.reimenayee.com/

Floyd Norman is a legendary animator and cartoonist. His first big job was on Sleeping Beauty, and he’s gone on to work on any number of Disney movies since then, including a stint at Pixar and cartooning jobs everywhere. He’s also a pioneer as one of the first prominent African-American animators. He’s also one of […]

A true artist knows that inspiration can strike anywhere. Say, for instance, you’re sitting in a movie theater, watching Christopher Nolan’s Inception. Obviously, when you watch Ariadne and — fold a city in half, you’re going to think to yourself: “I want to cover that with magazines and coasters! At least, that’s what Stelios Mousarris thought, and thus we have the Inception Coffee Table. You can even use the handy (and stylish) surface area to spin a top and see if you’re actually awake, or trapped within a world of your own imagining.

So. Many. Layers.

[via Neatorama!]

In Old Town Alexandria (Virginia), archaeologists have uncovered a 50-foot remnant of the hull belonging to a ship that sank in the 1700s… completely by accident. The discovery occurred at the construction site for a new hotel, a site that seems to be rich for discovery: Two months ago, workers also discovered a warehouse foundation from about 1755 that is believed to be the city’s first public building. But whereas the warehouse could be corroborated with public records, there was no known evidence of the ship’s existence. Even more exciting is how well-preserved the wreck is, to an almost unprecedented extent for something discovered in a city.

The Washington Post describes the archaeology crews’ find as “a 50-foot-long remnant of the keel, frame, stern, and flooring, estimated to be about one-third of the original hull.” They believe that the ship was scuttled (that is, purposely sunk by letting in water and/or ripping holes in the hull) sometime between 1775 and 1798; because it was buried, oxygen couldn’t get in to decay the wood. Dan Baicy, the field director for Thunderbird Archeology, the firm brought in to the site, explained the significance of a find like this:

It’s very rare. This almost never happens. In 15 years that I’ve done this work, I’ve never run into this kind of preservation in an urban environment where there’s so much disturbance.

He also pointed out that the brick footing for another warehouse “barely missed the boat.” So, what did this ship carry, and for whom? Naval archaeologists joined the site earlier this week, dismantling the ship timber by timber to look for identifying information. John Mullen, Thunderbird’s lead archaeologist, called the find “the jewel in the crown for us”; the archaeologists have hypothesized that the ship was cargo or military, and might have been placed in its location to provide a framework against the deeper waters of the Potomac at Port Lumley.

Local residents were invited to observe for a few hours before the pieces were removed to another site. At the moment, archaeologists are waiting for room in a preservation lab to open up; in the meantime, they’re storing the pieces in tanks or a natural body of water. The hope is to reassemble at least some of the ship for public display, but that will take the city several years and will require special fundraising.

But there’s more! The construction workers also discovered a privy, one of many outhouses uncovered during the hotel construction. This one already seems to be a rich receptacle for such everyday artifacts as glass, bones, and, oddly enough, shoes. No word yet on how well-preserved those are.

I’ve written a blog about the potential influence of One Punch Man‘s popularity on the anime super band, JAM Project. You can find it on Apartment 507.

Apartment 507 also sells point cards for Japanese services such as iTunes, Playstation, and Wii U, so if you’re someone who likes to play Japanese games digitally it might be worth your while to look at the rest of the site.

The only chef who should be cooking your Super Bowl Sunday meal.

Culinary maverick and aspiring wine snob Guy Fieri will be cooking a bombastic all-you-can-eat buffet for the Bullseye Ticket Group's Players Super Bowl Tailgate on Super Bowl Sunday — and it's only going to cost you $700. Emceed by Erin Andrews and featuring 25 top active players, the five-hour party starts at 10:30 a.m., has a premium bar, and will be going down right near the Santa Clara, California, stadium that's hosting the game.

There will also be two other Food Network personalities cooking, but let's focus on what really matters: Fieri's typically insane and over-the-top menu. There's going to be something called a "Live Nacho Bar" (so, freshly killed tortilla chips?), a Whole Hog Throwdown (will you have to fight for your pulled pork?), a Supersteak Sandwich Station, and a Flavortown Finale with doughnut bread pudding with a brown butter–bacon-bourbon glaze, because it's not the Super Bowl unless you have a heart attack.

[Mashable]

Read more posts by Chris Crowley

Filed Under: this is happening, guy fieri, superbowl sunday

New anime to commemorate Trigger's 5th anniversary

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