Out of the Office – Time for Utter Nonsense

November 17th, 2007

I’m about 16 hours away from boarding a plane to head out for a week on a white beach under the dangerously bright sun for the first time in 17 years. I am in no way promising to review a damn thing while I’m gone. In fact, I sincerely hope to not think about anime or manga at all while I read trashy lesbian pulp novels and drink fruity girl drinks poolside.

But I will have access to the intertubes, so who knows. I might post. I will certainly read – if not respond to – my email.

So this seems like a good time to solicit questions for the twice annual Utter Nonsense fest. This time please feel free to ask questions that actually require a bit of research, as well as those I can answer glibly with a elitist intellectual sneer. ~_-

When I get back, or when I feel like it…eventually, at any rate, I’ll collect the set and answer the ones I like. :-) (I found an old one that I never answered, so we’re already off to a good start.) Questions can be about anything, I don’t really care, but again try and make the “reference” questions ones I can answer with a little work, not a research paper’s worth. And please, don’t try and stump me. I’m not a quiz show. lol

I’ll be doing one more review tonight before I go. Then, please feel free to read back over the 860 posts that are already here and get enraged at my opinions all over again for the first time. :-)

See you when I get back!

9 Responses

  1. Haruchin says:

    Ok, I’ll try this question. Apologies if the levels of research turn out to be excessive – I honestly have no idea how much digging around it would take to answer this comprehensively, since I’ve never actually tried – only wondered.

    I’m a fan of accents, in any language. However, enjoying Japanese media as I do, and learning Japanese at a steady (read: annoying slow) rate, I’ve recently come to appreciate Japanese accents, and by extension, characters in anime and manga who speak with specific accents.

    I was wondering if you might be able to identify some key characters in anime who speak in specifically accented Japanese? My favourite accent is the Kyoto dialect, so in the interests of narrowing the search, I’ll limit the question to Kyoto-ben in particular. We all know about Shizuru, but are there any others out there?

  2. Anonymous says:

    Are there any academically peer-reviewed articles on Yuri? What’s the state of Yuri scholarship?

    (Well, you asked for ‘questions requiring research’… ;) )

    As a starting point, I’ve found James Welker and his “Beautiful, Borrowed, and Bent: “Boys’ Love” as Girls’ Love in Shôjo Manga” (Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (2006) vol. 31, no. 3) via Google which briefly discusses Yuri as an adjunct to 70’s shonenai and Japanese queer/genderqueer culture.

    Thank you for all the good blogs on Okazu!! :D

  3. Anonymous says:

    So why do some European cities have this bizarre spelling in English? Firenze is Florence, Venezia is Venice, Köln is Cologne, München is Munich, etc. What’s up with all of that?

  4. Anonymous says:

    about how many people usually show up at the Yuricon events? and do you know how seven seas Yuri title sales doing compared to their other titles? and! is venus virus really not a Yuri title?

  5. scareknee says:

    Okay, I’ll try my hand at one. Sorry, it’s not really a fun question. :P

    Currently, one of things I am looking to do as a job is be a librarian. How would you describe the job and how does one become a librarian? As in, any necessary degrees or whatnot?

  6. Anonymous says:

    Given this: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2007-11-19/marimite-pizza-hut-japan-campaign-fan-disk-announced

    two questions:

    Firstly, which flavours of pizza do you think each member of the YamaYurikai prefer? (my guess is that Shimako’s is whatever Sei-sama’s is…. and that Sachiko, if she could be persuaded at all, would have something like foie gras.)

    Secondly, how would they resolve the inevitable dispute when ordering the pizza as to how much of each kind to get?

  7. Frea says:

    Nonsense one first (any glib answers will be thoroughly enjoyed):
    -if you can only use one utensil the rest of your life for both eating and cooking, what would it be?

    then some others:
    -have you read any good (non-anime/manga related) books lately?
    -have you read any of the other books of the Dune series? If so, how were they?
    -what’s your opinion about fansubs/scanlations? Do you think they affect the anime industry?
    -do you have any pet peeves when it comes to grammar/punctuation?

    Finally, a researchy question:
    -what is the origin of the terms “neko/tachi”?

    Apologies for the fountain of questions: it seems that once I start babbling, random questions easily flow out of my mouth. Puns not intended… I think.

  8. Anonymous says:

    Is Yuri a reinvention of esu and ome? What’s the relationship between “esu and ome” and Yuri? What has persisted from esu and ome? What has vanished?

  9. Diana says:

    Whenever or wherever I read manga or watched anime someone will said something like this to me ‘What are you? 12?’. As I’m 20 years younger than you, so, why do you think they said that to me and what am I suppose to tell them back?

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