Pop Culture Gluttony

Flying racoon and other oddities - The world of "One Piece"

2008-08-13T13:02:00.000-07:00

"One Piece" is one of my favorite shows - but not because of the narrative or script. Basically it follows the typical shonen formula and is filled with fightings and sermonizing on the importance of friendship and being good (That is in spite of the fact that the hero is a pirate...). What makes this series exceptional is the mad and wild visuals. A lot o people are turned off by it's cartoon-y look, buy I LOVE it.
Here are some images of animals from a secluded island shown early in the show (episode 18):
The Bat-Racoon:

The Bunny-Snake:

The Lion-Pig:

And finally a picture of Zorro - just because he is my fave:

Don't you love bad seeds? from 'Naruto'

2008-08-12T15:22:00.000-07:00

"Naruto" is a very weird show for me. It has lots of scenes of toilet humor, shounen action sequences and lot's of melodrama. However sometimes it can become quite poetic and offer striking images like this one of baddie Gaara. It's from a flashback to his childhood:
I'm suck sucker for mixing cute and evil...

D.Gray Man - why it's worth it...

2008-08-11T16:10:00.000-07:00

D.Gray man is a pretty mediocre show and can be sometimes a bit of a slog to watch however often there are striking images or story lines that make it all worth it.
Here are 2 images I used in the past as desktops:

"Chocolate Underground" Episodes 1 -3

2008-07-09T21:05:00.000-07:00

The premise of this show sounded interesting - a dystopian future where the health police is in charge and bans sweets. Of course, rebels try to get hold of this coveted commodity. and episodes are 3-5 minutes in length!
The beginning was still promising - a full scale (and well animated) police raid on the dining room of a middle aged couple enjoying chocolate. After destroying their house and getting hold of the illicit substance, the policeman announces:

Sadly - from then on all goes downhill. We get acquainted with the two cookie cutter teenage male protagonist. They visit a girl that one of the guys likes, whose parents own a sweet shop and are out of business. Not to mention that valentine is coming and the girl just HAS to get chocolate.
Then the guys (whose names I'm not even going to bother with remembering) hear about a chocolate underground and want to find it.
In the third episodes we see the new substitutes to sweets people eat now:

We also discover that the black haired guy's father works has a bakery and is now allowed to make only bread. And that people are spying on each other.

This series could have been a great comedy with serious undertones, but it seems the creators opted on making it a thriller/drama, which is a format that doesn't really benefit from the 3-5 minutes episodes. You can make great series that are this short ("Chi's Sweet Home" for example), but they are usually more of a gag comedies.
Because the episodes are so short, I'm not going to drop it yet - but this show better get sweet soon.

my rating: 60/100

Panda Barbeque

2008-07-09T17:38:00.000-07:00

They say an image is worth a thousand words - here one that sums up why I love "Kyou Kara Maou" so much:

This series can be so wonderfully absurd, that all lack of plot progression is forgiven.

My first time - be gentle

2008-07-09T15:02:00.000-07:00

This is my first time blogging.
In this blog I will mainly blow steam about stuff I watch, read or listen to. And sometimes, if the muse strikes, about my life.
Who am I?
My name's Roy. I'm 29 and live in Israel. I recently graduated from medical school and now I have too much free time till I start my internship in November.
That's all for now... hope I won't bore you.