Adam WarRock Gave me a Virtual Hug

I’m a big fan of Random and follow him, as well as K-Murdock, on Facebook. Since Facebook likes to show what others are commenting on, one of K-Murdock’s “likes” showed up in my feed. It was a photo of a venue with a list of artists playing, one of them being, “ADAM WARCOCK.” Under it was the caption, “LOL best misspelling of my name ever!” This was the first I heard of Adam WarRock (real name Eugene Anh). It took me a while to catch on to him, but a guy who makes a mixtape about Parks and Recreation is a winner in my book.

This week, he is running his annual donation drive. He regularly and frequently puts out free music, and only asks for donations once a year. The donation drive coincides with the anniversary of him quitting his day job as a lawyer, and moving onto music full-time. My admiration goes out to those who make this decision in life because I know exactly what it’s like. Currently, I work as a “starving artist.” As much as I love my father, and I know he loves me, he still to this day does not approve of what I do. I spent a fraction my childhood of him saying things like, “You’re good at art…you should be a plastic surgeon!” I realize first generation Asian parents do this because they want their kids to be secure in their future. So, to come to them and say something like, “Hey I’m going to make anime costumes for a living” it’s going to get this reaction :/. I can’t imagine the look on Eugene Anh’s parents’ faces when he told them he was going to quit being a lawyer so he can become a rapper.

He risked being a disappointment to his parents, gave up being a lawyer, and invested a ton of sweat equity into what he loves the most. His regular releases show his passion and dedication to his work, and his music is fun and well-produced. These are all reasons you should donate to Adam WarRock. I wasn’t able to afford as much as I would have liked to give, but I was pleasantly surprised by a donor award (as well as a virtual hug over twitter). You will not be disappointed by it, either. The donor award contains plenty of tracks and a little comic. Check out his first music video below too. It's a good song and explains what he does. Appreciate this man’s hard work and donate today!

Hip-hop for Fandom

My love for hip-hop and games were never mutually exclusive. I learned about Japanese hip-hop artists through Bemani games. Japanese hip-hop eventually led me back to American hip-hop, thanks to J-hip-hop influences and collaborations. While I appreciate all kinds of hip-hop, nerdcore is a sub-genre I can especially appreciate. Like most music, there's a lot of unfortunate crap you have to weed through to get to the good stuff. For those of you who may be new at this, I'm going to try and make it a little bit easier for you by making a few artist recommendations.

Random (a.k.a. Mega Ran) is my #1 pick. He was recently featured on complex.com for his amazing freestyling at E3, and his Mega Man albums are officially licensed by Capcom. He is lyrically skilled and is frequently backed up by familiar, but wonderfully remixed samples and beats. Find all of his music here. The best from Mega Ran is the tracks he did with K-Murdock. My favourite is below.

This next artist was introduced to me by my boyfriend (who will, from this point on be referred to as "Tanuki"). Tanuki works in information security. Information security has a small community. So, it didn't take long for him to find YT Cracker. His latest track was titled "#antisec" and was in regards to lulzsec being caught. He's a smart guy with smart lyrics. Find all of his albums here. Find one of his catchiest tracks below, "The Link."

Adam WarRock's music has a wide variety of subjects, from Mass Effect 3 to Parks and Recreation. Once, I randomly saw his name on an Asian-American blog. I thought, "Why is Adam WarRock featured here?" I had no idea he's Korean American! He's a lawyer turned rapper and keeps relevant with regular releases. You can find his albums here. Also, check this one out, it's about the best show on television.

These artists are just a teeny-tiny fraction of nerdcore. For a much more comprehensive list of nerdcore artists, check out nerdcorenow.com. I'll definitely be making more recommendations in the future.

The Gamer's T-shirt

Over two weeks ago, I visited friends and family for a weekend in LA. A good friend of mine, Emil, told me he was very conscious of the t-shirts he wore around my boyfriend and me because we always had "such cool and unique shirts." This post is for Emil, but I think some of you out there can find it useful too. Below are my recommendations on where to find the best t-shirts.

My number one choice is Meat Bun. Giant Robot in LA carries their shirts in-store, but you can also find them online at their website. The shirts incredibly soft and made in the USA. They are also the only place you can get Paul Robertson's artwork on a t-shirt. The shirts are still loud in their big designs and use of color, but when referencing a game, the imagery and text are not obvious as to where they come from. My only complaint about them is their complete lack of women's sizes. Though, I like them enough to buy a shirt from them and put the time into altering it so it fits me.

Another shirt company I recommend is Kineda. The shirts are limited run, so I suggest you like them on Facebook or sign up for their mailing list. Keep a look out for their new World Warrior collection which is officially licensed by Capcom. Their interpretations of game characters are simple and Hello Kitty-like. The screen printing on the shirts is absolutely perfect and they use my favourite choice in basic clothing, American Apparel.

One game clothing company I have always admired, but have never been able to afford is King of Games. They carry t-shirts, hoodies, and button down shirts. All of their designs revolve around retro games and their work is incredibly detailed. It even comes packaged in a cool box! Though, the shirts run ¥3500 to ¥6000. The bad news: after overseas shipping, you're pretty much paying BAPE prices on t-shirts. The good news: the chances of running into someone with the same shirt at PAX is slim.

One company I discovered recently is Bitmap'd. Their designs are simple and subtle. Though, I can't speak for the screen print or the t-shirt quality, there's only one way to find out. (They also do not carry women's sizes.)

Here are two places I don't recommend for gaming t-shirts. Shirt.Woot carries limited run designs, which is a good thing. Though, recently they increased their prices and stopped printing on American Apparel shirts. They switched those out for cheaper shirts made in Honduras. I wouldn't have minded the price increase if they stayed with American Apparel, but this move made me stop buying from them completely.

The other place I don't recommend is Threadless. They are a great company with good quality t-shirts, but do not buy their gaming shirts. Why? EVERYONE has my Space Invaders shirt and it's kind of embarrassing. Not only do I see it on at least ten different people every time I go to PAX, I even ran into an a grey-haired, overweight man at an appliance store wearing it. That's how common it is. Some people don't mind this, but I am not one of those people. I'm not saying don't buy from Threadless at all. The problem with my shirt is that I bought it as a re-print.  If it stays limited run, your experience with the shirt would probably differ from mine, but you never know if a limited run shirt from Threadless is going to be re-printed or not. 

Stay tuned for a future post on recommendations on what to wear with that gaming t-shirt!

Anime Catch-up

The glory days of anime are long gone. Finding something watchable is the equivalent to finding Waldo in the image below.

Thank you RuinedChildhood for this lovely illustration.

Recently, Hulu and Netflix's anime library has grown significantly, which makes trying out anime much easier than sifting through torrents or poor-quality streams. Netflix has allowed me to re-watch old favourites, and Hulu has introduced me to a few new series. (Please excuse me for being a year or two behind.)

One of them being Tiger and Bunny. I am still only in the first half of this series and have yet to learn to love it. I can't stand the bishounen yaoi whatever in it and absolutely hate Barnaby's hair, but it has got to be the best use of product placement I have ever seen. The big robot anime fight thing is pretty generic, but the cast of characters make it amusing at times. (The best one so far is the Barnaby documentary episode.) I would say it's just okay, but I am going to stick with it a while longer to see what all the hype is about.

The second series I started is Big Windup. I have always wanted to watch baseball anime, and since my Cubs are terrible this year, Big Windup will have to do. It's a shounen series created by a female manga-ka named Asa Higuchi. The scaredy-cat main character, Mihashi, is annoyingly Shinji-like. Though, he is balanced out by his calm and collected baby-sitter catcher, Abe. It is essentially watching baseball, but you get to know the players personally. A game will take up to several episodes, and much of those episodes are the thoughts inside the players' heads. Frankly, it can be boring like a baseball game, and I mean this in the most loving way possible because I really love baseball. I love listening to baseball while I work and the best naps are taken while listening to a game on the radio. Not too long ago, I went to a Nats game. I can tell this anime absorbed me because the game was playing out to me like a Big Windup episode. An element I love in this anime are the female characters. Maria Momoe is the head coach. She is brash, intimidating, and a strong leader. Chiyo Shino'oka is the team's manager. She is sweet, hardworking, and really loves her team. (She also has a really adorable Shiba Inu companion.) I recommend this series to anime and baseball fans alike.

Listen to me Girls, I am your Father is a completely ridiculous moe, lolicon, harem anime. As I've gotten older, I don't really subscribe to such. Unfortunately, I actually really like this series. It's incredibly cute and makes me giggle. Seeing 10-year-old and 14-year-old girls prance around in sexy pajamas is only slightly uncomfortable. The series is about three sisters who are suddenly put under the parental guardianship of their college student uncle, Yuuta. (Only the youngest and most adorable sister, Hina, is actually blood-related to him.) The oldest sister has always had a crush on him, but Yuuta is much more interested in his strange, but incredibly busty classmate, Raika. Hijinks ensue, and then I feel guilty for enjoying it.

Wes Anderson's Best

Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums are two of my favourite movies, but I feel like "favourite" is an understatement. These are movies I fell deeply in love with. As a teenager, I saw Rushmore and could relate a lot to Max Fischer. I proceeded to watch it repeatedly thanks to Comedy Central's frequent airing of the movie. Before I saw The Royal Tenenbaums in theaters, I did not realize it was Wes Anderson who directed both movies (as well as Bottle Rocket). The visuals, the acting, the story, and unexpected hilarity won my heart.

Faithfully, I saw The Life Aquatic, but felt disappointed by it. (The only part I loved was the Portuguese musician.)  I still had hopes for The Darjeeling Limited, and loathed it. While beautiful, it made me realize all Wes Anderson movies were about boys with daddy issues. Even after those two movies, when I heard about Fantastic Mr. Fox, I was beyond excited. Theoretically, Wes Anderson plus animation should equal out to awesome. Unlike Royal Tenebaums, this movie did not steal my heart. Though, the true beauty of this movie is it being a Wes Anderson film for children. It's everything typical from his films (yellow filter, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, amazing soundtrack, daddy issues plot), but for a child. The movie felt fresh and was a big step up from his previous two films.

Wes Anderson's six films were all just build up to his seventh, Moonrise Kingdom. This is his funniest, most absurd, and most beautiful film yet. I saw it opening night at E Street Cinema in DC. It was showing on three screens and every show was sold out. There was even someone trying to scalp tickets outside the theater. While waiting for the movie to start. I overhead audience members talk about their favourite Wes Anderson films. One hipster proclaimed, "The Darjeeling Limited was my favourite because no one else liked that one." Another much more reasonable human being said The Royal Tenebaums was her favourite. It was difficult for me to choose between Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, but I now choose Moonrise Kingdom.

Yes, it was that good. I'm going to refrain from giving too much away, but I will say a few things. All of the actors are fantastic. The children are hilarious, and I absolutely love Bruce Willis' and Edward Norton's characters. There were a couple of details in this movie that caught my eye every time. One was a kitten. Every time the kitten was in the shot, it did exactly what it should have been doing. How they got this kitten to do this, I'm not entirely sure. I also loved all the patches on the scouts uniform, especially the poorly stitched brown raccoons on their front pockets. Little things like this just go to show how much attention to detail Wes Anderson has.

In conclusion, go see Moonrise Kingdom.

Ghibli Glory

AFI Silver (photo from trazzler.com)

The cherry blossoms in DC bloomed over two months ago and there was a 5-week long celebration to commemorate their 100 years in the city. Part of this celebration was the Studio Ghibli retrospective called "Castles in the Sky." It's a traveling show and has already been to LA, Dallas, Austin, and New York. It's currently in Portland and only has two more weeks left here. Over the long weekend, I was finally able to go. The films are playing at AFI Silver, and there was not a more perfect place to see this movie. It is gorgeous, historic and in a nice little neighbourhood with plenty of good places to eat. Typically, I think of DC as an uptight place. Though, if it were that uptight, I don't think the Smithsonian and a beautiful art deco theater would be running (classic) anime movies for two months straight. Events like this make me happy to be here.

About 12-13 years ago, I saw Princess Mononoke in an old, run down theater. Maybe I was too young or too stupid to appreciate the movie back then, but as of the day before last Monday, the only thing I could really remember about the movie were the "clicky-clickies" (kodama). This is the most gorgeous movie I have ever seen about humans destroying the planet. It doesn't just look beautiful either. The story, the adventure, and the relationships between characters is completely absorbing. Because technology makes creating film so much easier today, the hand-drawn animation in it is probably something we will never see again.

Shamefully, I have not seen all of the Studio Ghibli movies, but I am making an effort to do so. John Lasseter (Chief Creative Officer of Disney) is making a conscious effort to provide us with great dubs in the theater, and I encourage everyone to buy a ticket when the the next Ghibli film comes to town. Thankfully, "Castles in the Sky" is giving cities all over the US the opportunity to see old Ghibli films many of us did not get to see in theaters. To everyone at my home base in Chicago, the Gene Siskel Film Center will be hosting "Castles in the Sky" starting next week. The Gene Siskel Film Center is a fantastic venue in the heart of the loop. Hopefully, I can find someone to go with me to a screening of My Neigbor Totoro.

Movie poster displayed at AFI Silver