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Yoshitoshi ABe Community: Everyone Is Connected

M

melichrous

Member
I think I'm gonna do a full rewatch of Lain sometime soon. I didn't watch all of it first time around, but really enjoyed it from what I can remember.
We need more releases like this!
 
C

Capra

Member
Just popping in to say that Lain is one of my favorite things ever and like, half of the ideas I have for game projects I want to make someday take direct inspiration from it.

So with that said... Is the PS1 game worth looking into? Is it canon? Or is it just fluff?
 
cj_iwakura

cj_iwakura

Member
Capra said:
Just popping in to say that Lain is one of my favorite things ever and like, half of the ideas I have for game projects I want to make someday take direct inspiration from it.

So with that said... Is the PS1 game worth looking into? Is it canon? Or is it just fluff?
Click to expand...

It's fluff. Interesting, and has some... curious additions to the mythos, but the wildly changed art style is off-putting.

I'll see if I can get some screens of it. It's mostly FMV, and lots of text.
 
cj_iwakura

cj_iwakura

Member
U4kFbYi.jpg


I think this would make an interesting thread, but as I can't make one, hopefully this suffices.

VnLI74B.jpg


As I've said, the Lain PSX game is an odd duck.

X7siuvh.jpg


It's not even really a game at all. It's a simulator.

WvvLoVF.jpg


You navigate a Lain avatar through a cyclical interface to access her journals, voice recordings, and assorted clips of her interacting with society.

g92nLVD.jpg


It gets VERY repetitive, but there is a ton of content if you have the patience and time to unlock it all.

hKg1Urd.jpg


As seen, her avatar is very playful and light-hearted, kind of like her original form before Wired-Lain takes over.

I don't know who did the anime scenes, but judging from the wildly different style, probably not Nakamura.

xfQXTD8.jpg


7M6AvMb.jpg


XXyfI4v.jpg


There are moments very reminiscent of the show's aesthetics, though.

dngkoUa.jpg


The diaries are mostly Lain talking about anything from classmates to her parents. Is it meant to be the same Lain we know, or an alternate reality?

CXDr7NC.jpg


Either way, if you love Lain and want another dose of her strange world, it's certainly worth a look.

ynu8wcb.jpg
 
C

Capra

Member
Heh, that artstyle is hideous... But the "game" itself seems fairly interesting. I watched some of the scenes on YT and... yeah, some definite Lain weirdness going on.

I might make a point to play it sometime down the line.
 
cj_iwakura

cj_iwakura

Member
Capra said:
Heh, that artstyle is hideous... But the "game" itself seems fairly interesting. I watched some of the scenes on YT and... yeah, some definite Lain weirdness going on.

I might make a point to play it sometime down the line.
Click to expand...

Pretty sure Konaka wrote it, so there's that.
Also, for some odd reason,
there's a shower scene.
 
R

Remembrance

Member
I wish these had existed when I met him at a signing last year!

But at the time I saw what everyone else brought to get signed and... A career retrospective was really all that was missing. This is much-needed.
 
cj_iwakura

cj_iwakura

Member
Saudades said:
Yeah no, Despera is still dead afaik. No news on that.

I just want to throw out to my fellow ABe fans that apparently he's gonna have some 20th anniversary artbooks released next month.
Here is the cover he's working on, looks great:
Click to expand...

Very nice, looking forward to it. I can't believe there's total radio silence on Despera. Either someone isn't asking or they're not telling.
 
S

Saudades

Member
Another day, another nail in the Despera coffin with this interview of its writer Chiaki Konaka 2 months ago, in which he expresses total surprise hearing about ABe's announcement of the show's supposed revival last October:
APG: Recently, Yoshitoshi Abe announced that production has resumed on the Despera anime. Can you comment on the status of this production?

Konaka: What? Is it truly “announced”?
Unfortunately I can’t precisely answer that, but it might be so…
Click to expand...

In other less depressing news, ABe is doing great progress on his cover for the second artbook:
8Kbwmq6.jpg
qCweS9W.jpg
Click to expand...
 
B

blurr

Member
Wow, first time posting here, I cannot believe there's an entire thread on Yoshitoshi ABe here. His work Haibane Renmei is my favorite anime of all time, really beautiful piece of work. I watched Niea_7 later and also enjoyed it, it was beautiful in its own style. I hope to see more of his works here, of course, Serial Experiments Lain, Texhnolyze and Phenomeno are in my queue.

Edit: forgot to mention, I've also started reading Ryuushika Ryuushika because I heard it was by him, 9 chapters in and it's lovely and at times very thought provoking.
 
cj_iwakura

cj_iwakura

Member
blurr said:
Wow, first time posting here, I cannot believe there's an entire thread on Yoshitoshi ABe here. His work Haibane Renmei is my favorite anime of all time, really beautiful piece of work. I watched Niea_7 later and also enjoyed it, it was beautiful in its own style. I hope to see more of his works here, of course, Serial Experiments Lain, Texhnolyze and Phenomeno are in my queue.

Edit: forgot to mention, I've also started reading Ryuushika Ryuushika because I heard it was by him, 9 chapters in and it's lovely and at times very thought provoking.
Click to expand...

Not sure I've heard of it, but I love Pochiyama at the Pharmacy and I Am An Alien & I Have A Question.
 
B

blurr

Member
cj_iwakura said:
Not sure I've heard of it, but I love Pochiyama at the Pharmacy and I Am An Alien & I Have A Question.
Click to expand...

It's a manga which is around 40 chapters long. Phenomeno is a LN, they released a short VN promoting it IIRC.

I have not heard of the ones you mentioned either.
 
cj_iwakura

cj_iwakura

Member
blurr said:
It's a manga which is around 40 chapters long. Phenomeno is a LN, they released a short VN promoting it IIRC.

I have not heard of the ones you mentioned either.
Click to expand...

Oh, I'm well aware of Phenomeno. The VN is fantastic.

Pochiyama and I Am An Alien are doujins he did.

513738ofyKL._SX357_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
 
S

Saudades

Member
Looks like the cover is completed. Some copies are gonna be sold at C88 apparently.
Why isn't the biggest bookstore in my city importing these artbooks arghhhhh~ (and they import the latest volume of Ryuushika too).

11374226_955721721159293_925557457_n.jpg
Click to expand...
 
cj_iwakura

cj_iwakura

Member
Saudades said:
Looks like the cover is completed. Some copies are gonna be sold at C88 apparently.
Why isn't the biggest bookstore in my city importing these artbooks arghhhhh~ (and they import the latest volume of Ryuushika too).
Click to expand...

Wow, that depth perception. I wonder what it's from.
 
S

Saudades

Member
Wonder what ABe's next move is, with Phenomeno over, Ryuushika last volume releasing this month and Despera still deader than Dillinger. Aside from doing a Kancolle doujin every Comiket, that is.
 
cj_iwakura

cj_iwakura

Member
Saudades said:
Wonder what ABe's next move is, with Phenomeno over, Ryuushika last volume releasing this month and Despera still deader than Dillinger. Aside from doing a Kancolle doujin every Comiket, that is.
Click to expand...

I won't believe it's dead until I visit the morgue. It's production hell, or no one's covering it, but something has to be happening.

I don't know if ABe responds to his twitter followers, but asking him hasn't yielded anything.
 
B

B.K.

Member
We didn't get the Haibane Renmei Blu-Ray box in America, did we? I only remember seeing Funimation's rerelease of the DVDs. Was the set any good?
 
M

metsallica

Member
B.K. said:
We didn't get the Haibane Renmei Blu-Ray box in America, did we? I only remember seeing Funimation's rerelease of the DVDs. Was the set any good?
Click to expand...
Sadly we did not. Saudades seems to be intimating the remaster is subpar, so maybe that was for the best. Or maybe this one is better and we get it instead! Or, most likely, we don't get this one either because the show simply won't sell well enough here to justify the production costs.
 
M

metsallica

Member
Heck yeah, me too. Kids these days don't know how good they've got it when it comes to anime! We had to buy SINGLES! Sometimes they had 3 episodes a disc! It was like... GASP... JAPAN (yet still cheaper and usually with a higher per-disc episode count despite how crazy 3 sounds)! And don't get me started on VHS! Heh.
 
cj_iwakura

cj_iwakura

Member
It blows my mind how he's done so little work in the industry. Either he's very selective about his projects(my guess), or he's just low key like that.


Just realized Phenomeno was not in the OP. I've righted this grievous error.
 
cj_iwakura

cj_iwakura

Member
Saudades said:
Any one here knows Japanese?
Wanna see what this article is talking about regarding Texhnolyze BD (or I guess, the lack thereof).
http://stein.hatenablog.com/entry/2015/08/22/070000
Click to expand...

Heh, was just about to post about that since ABe posted it.

As far as I can tell, it's about the fact that it's not on BD, but saying that the best way is to get the DVDs for the time being.


Wow, if I'm reading this right, it says the director of Texhnolyze did the Steins;Gate anime?
 
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