B23 Break 16

April 9th, 2024

Okay.

Okay.

Allow me to go into why this exists.

As you know, I am a huge Takehiko Ito fan, and a fan of works he worked on like KO Beast, which was an incredibly impactful moment when I was 14 as it was one of the first anime that I saw that wasn’t aired on TV or shit you found at Blockbuster and the like. I have a large poster of it behind me as I type, even!

The prequel manga “KO Beast Century: Birth of V-Darn” has been available on ebay for a good while now except it was at $40 and did not want to pay $40 for a manga volume I can’t read even if I really wanted to use it as more style practice reference material. But a while back I got a $10 a $50+ order on ebay if I ordered within their mobile app. On that particular night I was feeling pretty depressed so I went “why the fuck not?” and hopped onto ebay, grabbed Birth of V-Darn and a Slayers Gorgeous “cinemanga” from the same seller which netter me an additional 20% off.

Anyway I get the manga and flip through it and this ugly mother fucker is the antagonist of the story. He is responsible for V-Darn becoming the Knight of Uranus as we see in the KO Beast OVA.

Now, I’m accustomed to goofy Ito character designs. From overly tall and skinny bodies to large bearded people with long pointy noses. It’s very cartoonish, which I like.

But this guy.

THIS guy.

His weird trait is that his lip goes WAAAAY the fuck off his face. Sometimes it’s not so bad, and other times it stretches outward and even curls around and junk. I’m like “why the hell is this dude’s lip running off his face? How does this work?” I doubt that there’s a real explanation in the manga itself, not that I could read it anyway.

I felt compelled to draw him. But also I wanted to draw his overly muscular bodybuilder shape body as well. I want to expand the sort of characters I draw than just cute pretty girls and shit and this dude looked fun to draw.

So here he is! Don’t even know his name! I could grab the manga and look or google it but, ya know, I don’t need to know his name. Commander Lip is good enough.

ANIME TALK:

Saturday I went over to a friend’s place and rewatched 1001 Nights and Nasu, which was a lot of fun. 1001 Nights is probably the “most entertaining” film of the Animerama trilogy, with Cleopatra being a mess and Belladonna of Sadness being a beautiful but also hard film. All three are still worth checking out, but if you only ever see one check out 1001 Nights. Also watch it with the old 60s/70s dub as it gives this an additional charm. It’s great! Nasu was also a nice short film about bike racing that Justin Sevaki’s now owned Animeigo put out. Definitely check it out and throw some money his way to help keep Animeigo going and put out anime that even Discotek won’t even touch!

I also watched Zenshu. And by watched I mean I watched the entire show in two days. Director gets isekaid to the world of her favorite anime from when she was a kid. My first impression of the show wasn’t great as I saw the comparison shots of the God Warrior scene from Nausicaa and the one Zenshu does. For one, it’s fucking Hideaki Anno you’re trying to reference so that’s a tall order to outdo it. Character reactions to the nuclear like explosion was a fraction of what the reactions were in Zenshu.

But as I kept watching it I fell in love with the show. It’s great. I liked the twists it showed and the passion for anime as a whole shone brightly all throughout. I will say that the “anime” within the anime sounds like a pretty shit movie, but the story acknowledges it was a poorly reviewed movie that bombed. Which, fine? I guess? Feels like a scapegoat so you can shove in whatever shit you want and not have to worry about your fake movie doesn’t make sense as a movie.

I recommend it. Check it out.

Also Welcome To Japan, Ms. Elf is pretty great. A very nice, wholesome, easy going show that was just what I needed at the moment. Watched it all in a few nights before bed. Great show to wind down to.

ANYWAY!!!

I’ve mentioned it before but for those who don’t know we do anime nights on Wednesdays and Fridays on the discord server around 8ish PM CDT, give or take an hour. Tonight we’re playing catch up with Outlaw Star, showing episodes 18-21 that we watched on Friday, along with a few episodes of the Lord of Lords Ryu Knight – Adeu’s Legend OVA, starting with episode 4 with the introduction to Nuzzi!

The guy I ripped off for the ice cream driver!

Anyway I bring this up because we’re about two weeks away from finishing Outlaw Star on Friday night with six episodes left, so we’ll be done the Friday after next. Once we’re done we’re going to be watching Record of Lodoss War! For those who never saw it before and want to see what all it’s about and why Kevin and Elaine fixated on it so much now’s your chance! We’ll be starting with the OVA and then MAAAAAAAAAYBE go to the TV series. Not sure yet.

Lord of Lords Ryu Knight – Adeu’s Legend only just started so it’ll be a bit before that wraps up, with plans to watch it, Adeu’s Legend II, and FINAL. But once we’re doing the plan is to start watching the first seasons of Slayers TV!

Anyway, that’s all for tonight!

Reminder there is STILL TIME to submit ideas for THE LAST patron suggested drawing!