I think the cinema I frequent owes me some sort of recognition…looking back at my ticket history: hundreds of films over the past four years. I even have my favourite seats for each of their venues.
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Tag: Sound! Euphonium
Liz and the Blue Bird Composer Interview: agraph (Kensuke Ushio) | The Quiet and The Hidden
The extraordinarily persistent anime series and franchise Sound! Euphonium gained a new entry, in the form of a cinematic spin-off Liz and the Blue Bird by director Naoko Yamada, hot off the heels of her high-profile A Silent Voice manga adaptation.
Also marking the second time they’ve worked together, Yamada enlisted Kensuke Ushio as the film’s composer, evidently the beginnings of a thriving professional relationship between two young and already prominent practitioners of their respective art forms.
The following is a translation of the interview with the composer, published at lisani.
Funomenal Rear-view Contemplation: Best of Film & Game Music 2017
You know…I went into starting this post with snippets of ideas for the intro: something snappy, a humorously depressing comment on 2017, and end it with a cheesy flavour of hope. But instead…I ended up with this.
I think I’ve sampled more albums than I ever did in 2017: more varieties of artists both old favourites and new discoveries, an increasingly diverse set of classical repertoires, genres and origins. That comes with good news and bad news, and I think the good news is kinda obvious already. But the bad news: I’ve listened to less albums COMPLETELY than the past two years, since there’s always something I want to jump onto prematurely.
Nevertheless, I think it’s best I keep up this tradition of massive yearly reviews, where I get to highlight the world of background music, and to continue bastardising this idiotic concept that such music ‘shouldn’t be noticed’.
My Top 20 Favourite Anime (2017 Update)
Not sure where I heard it, but the perfect completed anime to favourite anime ratio is a clean-cut 10:1: meaning that now that I’ve completed over 200 anime in total (according to MAL at least), I get to update my favourite anime to a list of 20. And that’s good news and bad news.
Funomena Picks: Best of Anime 2016 | Part II
For my second and final venture into the best of anime 2016, I determine the overall winners of the year.
Funomena Picks: Best of Anime 2016 | Part I
Yes, for whatever reason, ATMA & Funomena is still alive and kicking. I also got into the elites’ club by being featured on the ThatAnimeSnob Reddit board. Truly an honour.
2016 was a horrible year (yes I’m one of those, deal with it) that was unfashionably kind to me as a blossoming anime fan and…maturing adult (somehow, these two do go hand-in-hand for me). I got myself a new (and first) decent-paying job, I started collecting anime, music and film merch like crazy. I watched too much anime.
Funomena Picks: Best of Anime 2015 | Part III
For my third and final venture into the best of anime 2015, I determine the overall winners of the year.
Below are my meticulously considered titles and studios that will be competing for and winning the Funomenon Globe (Took me 5 seconds to come up with this name…so it’s AWESOME. Design & 3D render pending.) for Best TV & Film Soundtracks, Top-Performing Studio and Favourite Anime of 2015.
Funomena Picks: Best of Anime 2015 | Part II
For Part II, I decided to have a little fun, with highlights for not just my favourite -deres and pretty boys, but also my picks for the year’s most memorable, notable and absurd ships, good and bad.
Strap yourselves in, folks, in case you are angered that your yaoi or yuri fantasies weren’t fulfilled. (and incest isn’t wincest…unless I say it is.)
*SPOILERS (duhhhh…)
Funomena Picks: Best of Anime 2015 | Part I
(What’s with people rushing their top lists…even the Oscars are STILL contemplating on last year, and how to stump poor ol’ DiCaprio…)
Some mindless yapping first.
About a few weeks ago, I marked my first year anniversary as a regular anime follower. What has always amazed me by myself (yeah…self-centred asshole…), is how quickly I can adapt and project myself into new fandom communities: it took me one photograph to fall in love with photography, it took me a few days and a few dozen albums to fall in love with film music. It took me only a year to complete basically enough anime shows and films to sustain long conversations with people, who have been following anime for years. I completed no less than 100 titles, OVAs and films in 2015, around 37 days’ worth of content (or 53280 minutes), and have familiarized myself with enough anime-isms to be able to analyse in-depth and engage in fanboy arguments during my university’s anime society get-togethers. Overall, anime has greatly improved my enjoyment of life: I have one more passion to engage with other people of common interests, and good animation satisfies my love for great art. I am thankful for that.
Hilarity Reactions: Haruchika Episode 1 | So a Trio of H’s and a Triangle Sat in a Bar…
(SPOILERS! It’s a bloody reaction post, sir, do try to notice the flipping obvious…)
Let me steal a bit from my own previous publication: Haruchika shares waaayyyyy too much incidental similarities with BOTH Hibike! Euphonium AND Hyouka. And for me to just…ignore it, is simply injustice.
Well, after watching one episode, the overlapping just increased a notch. After identifying that Haruchika is about a mystery-solving brass instrument band club…with a name that ALSO starts with an ‘H’, P.A. Works’ latest NOVEL adaptation also introduces another certain dynamic, one which also plays in an eerily similar manner to Hibike’s romantic situations…
Funomenal Rear-view Contemplation: Best of Film & Game Music 2015
A Year With a Lot of Reawakenings
Allow me to temporarily defect to the West once more, as I look over how 2015 has treated my other passion: film music.
The Genius of Sound! Euphonium: Kakedasu Monaka OVA | The Magic in Interactions
(MINOR SPOILERS FROM TV SERIES AND OVA)
Perhaps the best way to describe Kyoto Animation’s venture with Hibike! Euphonium is by literally contradicting myself: it is a work of complex simplicity. The emotional dissonance that exists, when a large group of individuals come together is typical of the atmosphere that you may find in a musical ensemble. Long story short, this OVA works as an alternate perspective provider on the emotional climax towards the latter end of the series, and it does it superbly.
ATMA & Funomena 