Kent Ward's Land of Awesome » Geekin Out

The Core Elements of a MANIME

Kent Ward — Wed, 19 May 2010 01:01:40 +0000

A very masculine looking man holds in his arms the corpse of a fallen foe. Ready to bury him, his young wards ask why he would commit such a compassionate act. The battle-weary successor to ancient assassination art Hokuto Shinken looks off to the distance and says “because this man loved the same woman I loved.”

That foe was named Shin, who was once the best friend of our hero Kenshiro. When the world ended in nuclear apocalypse, few survived and others were driven by madness to use violence and fear to rule the land. Shin, like many of Kenshiro’s antagonists, was driven mad by his ambition and took away Kenshiro’s beloved Yuria after he had defeated Kenshiro in battle.

Kenshiro wandered the land aimlessly until he ended up in situations where he had to use his martial arts to destroy those who would do harm to innocents that were just trying to survive their days on this ravaged earth. Through these exploits of badassery, he soon discovers that Yuria is held captive by Shin in his slave-built city, Southern Cross.

Kenshiro storms Shin’s palace and finds both him and Yuria. To mock Kenshiro, Shin kills Yuria right in front of him. Through sheer rage, Kenshiro violently defeats Shin. When it is discovered that the “Yuria” that Shin had killed was a lookalike doll, Shin sobs and reveals that Yuria had taken her own life just before Kenshiro entered Southern Cross. Shin tells Kenshiro how everything he did for Yuria – though misguided – was out of love for her. He then takes his own life.

Kenshiro sees the true feelings of Shin as he takes his life and decides to honor his death with a proper burial. These warriors, who just recently hated each other enough to want to kill each other, rekindle their friendship as Shin’s life ends.

For this and many other reasons, Fist of the North Star is one of the greatest manga and anime series ever and one of the cornerstones of MANIME, or manly anime. You know, those super masculine, testosterone-filled shows filled with plenty of violence and justice!

The core elements of MANIME are defined by Fist of the North Star and other series. These elements are critical to any anime being manly and any anime where these features are not prevalent are would not qualify as a manly anime.

VIOLENCE

In Maddox’s Alphabet of Manliness, he states that “men love violence, and every red-blooded man wants to die as violently as possible.” Violence is a critical aspect of MANIME, whether bodies are exploding or being cut in half. For the sake of justice violence is dispensed without hesitation. In situations where the corrupt abuse the weak and helpless, violence is not only the problem, it is also the solution!

If the scum of the planet aren’t rendered into a spectacle of bloody fireworks or if honorable warriors who have to die are not doing so in a way that inspire those they leave behind, then the level of violence is not high enough!

TRAGEDY

In the anime Berserk, the once cold and heartless loner Gutz finds companionship with his comrades in the Band of the Hawk. He later finds love with Casca as well. On the night of the eclipse, his best friend turns to great evil to gain incredible power and takes away everything Gutz has come to treasure in one night. With his body ravaged and his world turned upside down, Gutz now has to live in a world where the wicked supernatural prey upon him and many others. But no matter; he moves forward to take down the fiends that took all that he came to love.

Every protagonist in MANIME has something great they lose along the way - be it friends, family, or loved ones. These things are taken away from them in the cruelest of ways and now they must live with that pain as they continue their lives. However, they do not use these tragedies as a crutch but those moments will never be forgotten and will always be a driving force in their actions.

SHOULDERING BURDENS

Often, many things are expected out of our heroes in MANIME. As the successor to Hokuto Shinken, Kenshiro had to uphold the laws of his school and settle conflicts with rival disciplines and also his own brothers whom he both loved and respected. This usually ended up with Kenshiro regretfully having to kill such people.

Throughout his battles, people also began to depend on Kenshiro as a savior from tyrants that would oppress them. He was initially somewhat reluctant to this violent quest but after seeing women, children, and elderly having their lives stolen, he had no other choice but to fulfill his destiny.

SELF SACRIFICE

It is common for heroic characters in anime to put their bodies and lives on the line to protect something precious to them. This in not exclusive to MANIME; it’s a common theme in the heroism. This is one of those traits that may cause fans to consider some series to be manly even though they are lacking other core elements.

PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES

Manly anime characters share many common physical attributes to the point that they sometimes look similar. They usually are seen with the following:

Giant, chiseled muscles
Potato shaped heads
Defined, rigid jawlines
Built more powerful than a Sherman tank
A deep, commanding voice that can shake the very heavens
Thick, menacing eyebrows… or sometimes no eyebrows at all

Needless to say, a manly anime character would not be able to fit into a pair of skinny jeans!

FINAL WORD… FOR NOW

This is not the end of my discussions on MANIME. In fact, I will have future postings and will even be hosting panels on the subject at future conventions. These elements are core and common in many MANIME. They can niether be faked nor forced; they have to be real. With this in mind, you should be able to better grasp what makes a manly anime so.

MegaCon 2010 Wrap-up and Announcements!

Kent Ward — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:29:26 +0000

Hey everyone! Myself and the Propeller Anime Club rocked MegaCon this past weekend! We were successful with all our events and panels, even the one MegaCon almost prevented everyone from seeing! Yours truly presented several talks titled “Anime is Already Dead?”, “The Panel about Everything”, and “It’s MANIME! The Manly Anime panel.” The first two did okay but the Manime panel was most excellent in turnout. Everyone who stayed was definitely a better person than before they entered.

First, I have a few announcements to make:

At the Manime panel, in my loathing rant of hipster douchebags and their theft of the manliness of the beard, I promised, in the heat of my passionate fury, to take it back. They can keep their shitty Pabst Blue Ribbon and their sad obsession of liking things ironically, but the beard is coming back to true men dammit! I promised to sport a manly beard at this year’s Metrocon in Tampa, or else Brotha Kyo gets to kick me in the nuts.
I won’t be doing events at Metrocon, but I will be there hanging out and enjoying myself there.
I am going to start up “Kent Ward’s MANcast of Awesome!” this spring. The podcast will cover all things manly in the world of martial arts movies, videogames, Manime, 80s action flicks, norse mythology, and ass-kicking in general. Stay tuned!
Anime Festival Orlando is coming up in August. It’s the best anime convention in Florida(I’ll be happy to give you a manly headbutt if you disagree with me) and they have started pre-registration. Be there or you’re already dead.
I’m fucking awesome and don’t you forget it!

And now, my report!

“In Anime is Already Dead?”, I discussed the rise and fall of anime in the 2000s, citing factors that lead to anime’s near demise. Moe anime(fetish anime about little girls being boring every episode) was considered a major culprit, but the lack of risks and variety of newer anime and the fact that America has caught up with Japan in anime releases are also problems.

When anime boomed in the early part of last decade, there was 30+ years of great stuff to get from Japan and on to U.S. retail shelves. Anything that was crap was abandoned for the most part. Halfway through the decade, all that was left was the stuff that just came out in Japan. Because the load of good anime was already blown quickly, there really wasn’t much good anime left to release.

Sure, great stuff like Full Metal Alchemist, Baccano!, Summer Wars, and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann have recently come out, but those good series and movies are far and few between now. Because of this, along with the glut of moe shows and generic shounen shows about twelve year old kids with powers being impossibly cool, the interest has died down over here.

I made some points on where anime needs to go and I think I will follow this up with a talk “How to make anime cool again” at a later convention.

The “Panel about Everything” was a joke name inspired by a panel that happens at some other convention. It was actually a convention etiquette panel. But we didn’t want to call it that because the people who need to be taught about that the most would not show up. They didn’t anyways but there was some great discussion with both the audience and my co-panelists. Some great stories were shared too! Maybe calling it “Super Kawaii-chan Glompfest Desu” will attract the audience I am aiming for with this?

“It’s MANIME! The Manly Anime panel” was clearly the best part about all of MegaCon, period. If you did not go, then you wasted your money and wristband. That is the fucking truth. Everyone who did go, in fact, became manlier just by being there! Brotha Kyo and I covered a final revision of the Twelve Laws of True Man and we are hoping to get such laws published. I heard at least one feminist was angry during our panel but my manly spirit does not care too much about that. Maybe she should have brought us sandwiches if she was that offended? That would have fixed her good.

We discussed what made anime manly citing examples such as Fist of the North Star, Beserk, Grappler Baki, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, and Violence Hero Riki-Oh! We also made time to give some love to Cobra: The Animation, Guin Saga, and the granddaddy of Manime… Golgo 13! Granted, these series have excess amounts of violence, muscles, and testosterone; however those are all core ingredients of Manime.

It was the good time had by all who did not have sand in their vagina! For some reason, these three bros were upset that we did not cite Kamina and Gurren Lagann at all in the panel? I still have no idea why. Kamina has more in common with Street Fighter’s Dan Hibiki than he does the likes of Kenshiro, Gutz, and Duke Togo. I should have blown them off but I felt the need to have a debate. I hope to be able to write more in-depth on this matter later.

I helped out with other events in addition to mine. Most notably, the Cyberia dance that Anime Sushi puts on at MegaCon every year. It’s a dance for weeaboos to have seizures with glowsticks while loud electronic music and phat beats are blasting out of the speakers.

I worked security along with my friend Shawn and nobody dared to start a fight, have sex, or break out the pepper spray. This is sad because we were given permission to destroy people if such things were to happen. Perhaps, they felt our manly aura and knew the line to never cross? The dance went on without much incident to speak of, though I did have to clean up someone’s puke off of the dance floor.

MegaCon was a fun experience this year! I got to cosplay classic Terry Bogard on Friday which is something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time. In addition, I spent plenty of time with close friends while even making new ones. I got some cool gifts from friends and a very sweet girl brought me homemade sandwiches and cookies that gave me super powers! I bought myself the Baccano! boxset from FUNimation’s booth(which I started watching that last night!) and I saw some good panels that I helped schedule. I didn’t get to meet any guests, which I don’t feel bad about because it was they who missed out by not meeting me!

It was a great weekend and a lot of hard work and I look forward to new followers on my Twitter, more readers for this blog, and soon enough – the MANcast!

Old people are now justified to appear in Fighting Games!

Kent Ward — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 02:57:44 +0000

Oh man, this awesome on so many levels! Thuggin’ ass punk bitch thinks he can take down an old guy and gets what’s coming to him! So who would win a fight, Epic Beard Man or Segata Sanshiro?

He’s coming to a MegaCon 2010 near you!

Kent Ward — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:56:16 +0000

Attention, fandom! MegaCon is coming up in less than a month from now and will be at the Orange County Convention Center in (hopefully!) beautiful Orlando, Florida! I will be doing events there for what I believe is the fourth year in a row! I am pretty excited about this year; the Propeller Anime Club will be stepping out of the shadows and we will be showing off what we can do!

I will be hosting several panels and events at the convention in the Anime Events Track. It would be in your best interest to attend them if you happen to be going!

Anime is Already Dead?
Friday, March 12th from 2:30pm – 3:30pm in W224B

Anime in America boomed with tremendous popularity in the beginning of the last decade and by now the bubble has burst. What happened and who is to blame? What about anime has changed over the past ten years? Is there hope for the Japanese import? The founder of the Propeller Anime Club provides insight into this matter and how it will affect anime fandom in the future.

The Panel about Everything!
Friday, March 12th from 4:30pm – 6:00pm in W224B

Everything you should hear about convention culture will be discussed! Convention survival, how to talk to girls, the dos and don’ts of anime conventions, and all the dark secrets of the anime community will be covered!

(Note: I am not an expert on how to talk to girls, but my co-panelists are!)

It’s MANIME! The Manly Anime Panel
Saturday, March 13th from 12:30pm – 1:30pm in W224B

Learn what is to be a true man and makes a manly anime! This one is for fans of series like Fist of the North Star, Berserk, and other testosterone-filled classics! Both old and new anime of manly proportions shall be covered and you will even learn the gospel that is the Twelve Laws of True Man!

(Note: If you don’t go to this panel, then you are already dead!)

That is it for my panels! My club will also be running the Ninja Olympics, the Quickdraw! Contest, and Karaoke on Sunday! The anime events schedule looks better than ever this year at MegaCon so definitely check out as much as you can while you enjoy the convention. See you guys in March!

It’s Juza!!

Kent Ward — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 18:21:24 +0000

New screens of Hokuto Musou(that Dynasty Warriors game about Fist of the North Star) came out and Juza of the Clouds is in it! For those of you who don’t know, Juza is a fucking badass, a pimp, and a troll all at the same time. He was one of the five Nanto Chariot Stars(responsible for protecting the last Nanto general) and hung out in his own palace with naked chicks all day LIKE A BOSS.

Juza of the Cloud is most famous for stealing Raoh’s horse(!) and doing other things to piss him off. For instance, Raoh wanted to know who the last Nanto General was so he struck a pressure point of Juza’s, forcing him to tell the truth. Not being able to lie when asked again, Juza states that “Raoh is a fucking dickhead.” and spits blood in his face(I think it was in that order it happened).

Raoh was not amused and preceded to smash Juza with his fists until Juza eventually died on his feet. What a badass.

More screen shots here!

We’re jumpin onto White Base! AUUUUGH!

Kent Ward — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 02:04:02 +0000

It was another successful Down Right Fierce New Year’s party and a lot of awesome stuff happened. Nobody got Falcon Punched this time, which is pretty good. To any of my readers who came, thanks for coming! It was a blast! Har har, get it?

Here lies my awesome fireworks haul for the party! Yes, those robots on the right are indeed from the original Mobile Suit Gundam. We doubt that they art was used with Bandai’s permission but it was still an awesome purchase! That particular one lit up the sky!

And now here’s some related YouTube poop:

The Final Day of the Decade!

Kent Ward — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 15:04:31 +0000

I must say 2009, you were a year that started off with a lot of promise and I used that to bring myself to the point I am at now. I really feel like I won this year. As the last decade was ending, I was just some punk kid with a bunch of dreams, now I find myself ten years later and I feel like I am finally an adult who has control of most of his destiny. This has been the most successful year of my life and I have enjoyed this year far more than any other in my life.

Sometimes, I wonder why people have negative year end reflections every year that I have known them. It really makes me wonder what they are really trying to do with their lives. I’ve come to believe that you have to make the most of every moment in your life or else you are not living.

This has been a weird decade for the world overall. I can’t even describe it without writing an essay where I will most likely contradict myself often. However, I really hope the world changes in the next decade- and for the better. But it is going to be our responsibility to make that happen. I really think in this decade, too many people gave up on personal responsibility and depended far too much on people with authority to do things for them that they should have done themselves. And really, because of the lack of personal responsibility, we let our whole country fall apart.

Our economy would not be the way it is now if Americans didn’t become so lazy and health care wouldn’t be such a critical issue if everyone took better care of themselves. That is the basic truth that no politician will ever have the balls to tell the people. We are the only people who can make our lives good; nobody else can do that for us.

Enough of the negative; this has been a year for me that I will never forget. I’m going to now list every significant thing that happened that defined Kent Ward in 2009.

I started off the year right with the now legendary Down Right Fierce New Year’s Day Party. The main highlight was that I got so wasted that I Falcon Punched a friend in the chest because I thought he was raping a girl I liked at the time. He was actually trying to hug her goodbye and was on the ground hacking for six minutes for no good reason whatsoever. He helped me clean my house the next morning.
Four years ago, I had graduated Full Sail University with a Bachelor’s of Game Design and Development. There has been a lot of uncertainty – that I refused to show – about where it would take me. Sometime after I graduated, I was offered a chance to be a lab specialist at the school. I took it and over time, I became one of the best. I constantly challenged myself and it was a great opportunity to get better and meet lots of great people. I’m really glad for the experience because it did so much for me as a person as it did for my career.
I was also proud of myself for being able to take charge as head lab specialist for courses such as OpenGL and Real Time Animation this year. It was a lot of responsibility in addition to already being in charge of Engine Development I. It wore on me a lot and I still wonder how I was able to keep my sanity. Richard and Shawn provided me with many opportunities to advance myself and I am truly grateful for that.
The last one about my time at Full Sail: I created new lecture and lab material for RTA that would help students with getting animations working in their games sooner in their final Game Project course. It seemed like it took most groups two or three months to get that sort of thing working, but now they have a system in place that they can adapt right from the get-go.
I participated in the Global Game Jam in January, which is a 48-hour game making event. I really am proud I did that because it really lit a fire in my belly that I kept going for the rest of the year. I also got to work with badasses such as David Brown and Jay Baird.
Over the years, being exposed to epics such as Fist of the North Star, Berserk, The Alphabet of Manliness, 24, The Epic of Gilgamesh and every single Bruce Lee movie, I had started to develop ideas of what a man should be. My personal experiences were also a big factor in all of this. I noticed over the years that the manly spirit has died amongst many of my fellow brethren and that there was confusion on what makes a man manly. So I co-wrote the Twelve Laws of True Man, which I think does a good job for providing laws for true men to live by. When I first presented it, my audience was the local anime community, but I will write a revised version in the future where my audience will be all of humanity.
This year has been an awesome year for the Propeller Anime Club! We kicked ass at several conventions, organized a couple of fun game tournaments, did a lot of outings, got drunk together once or twice(the truth comes out!), and of course we watched lots of great anime – both old and new. I plan to write a reflection on the club blog, but I truly appreciate the amount of time I spent on the club. Hell, I’ll even go so far as to say that the Propeller Anime Club is what people should look towards as an example when one would want to describe an excellent anime club.
Speaking of anime conventions – ANIME FESTIVAL ORLANDO 10! Oh man, that was such a good life victory for me. AFO, every year, is the best damn anime convention in Florida and if you think otherwise then you must be retarded. Myself, and many others, worked our damn hardest to put on Swords of Orlandia III this year. The live action game has now become the premiere anime convention experience in the entire state, if not the country. I am really proud of how the game turned out and that many people enjoyed it. The icing on the cake was being made one AFO’s newest staff members because of my efforts(and those of the people who supported me helped with that too!).
I went to Disney World for the first time since I was twelve a little while ago. I went with one of my best friends, Fuzzy, and a couple of deceitful women. It was a double date that epically failed for both of us but the trip was still fun regardless of that. I loved Epcot the most out of the trip and I can’t wait to go back and drink around the world!
I played Beyond Good & Evil this year and I am really glad I did. What a fantastic game!
I really don’t think that this was the “Year of the Fighting Game” that I was hoping for, but I did get Street Fighter IV, BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, The King of Fighters XII, and Tekken 6. I really feel like there was far more hype than delivery with the return of fighting games in mainstream gaming, but the games were still better than most of everything else that came out this year(which really isn’t saying much). I plan to write about Tekken 6, which I have determined to be this year’s best fighting game. Don’t worry; I am about as surprised as you are.
Since I was ten, I’ve always wanted to take martial arts. This past month, I finally did. I am still a beginner when it comes to Muay Thai and I have some interesting bruises on my body because of it. However! It was about damn time that I finally got to follow this path I dreamed of for so long. I look forward to getting better at it and becoming more of a complete person as a result.
My brother, my parents, and I had Thanksgiving together in Alabama this year. We haven’t had Thanksgiving together in six years so this was definitely an accomplishment! I also discovered Grey Goose vodka during this trip and I love it so~
I saw Dethklok and Mastodon with excellent friends Jacob and Jess last month. I wouldn’t exactly call the experience “Metal.” The show was at the Hardly Rock, where moshing and crowd surfing is forbidden. People tried to mosh anyways but it was pathetic. I really feel like half the people who showed up were just posers that were there because they watch Adult Swim. We showed up to the concert after the opening acts played and I somehow made it to the front. Actually, it was easy; just about everyone else there was a pussy so knocking them out of my way as I made it front and center at the concert wasn’t much of a challenge. I had my horns closer to Dethklok front man Brendon Small than anyone else, which automatically makes me the most metal person that went to the concert.
I left Full Sail to become a game developer simulation scientist.
I really think I became a legitimate adult this year. I am more proud of this than anything. I’ve accomplished a lot this year, but I also had to deal with some supreme bullshit along the way. Despite that, all the experiences I’ve had up to this point have made me who I am today and will help make me into a better person in the future. I have learned so much about life this year and I think from this point on, if I truly make the effort, then life will continue to be good.

It’s been real good, 2009! I couldn’t have asked for a better year or a better way to end the decade! Here’s to the future!

The return of Rocky’s Replay!

Kent Ward — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 16:50:14 +0000

A cornerstone of my life in Orlando is back in a new location after a very long hiatus! Rocky’s Replay, which was pretty much Orlando’s only legitmate arcade is back and bigger than ever! There is a lot more space in the location and additional spots to actually lounge and hang out. Anyone who went to Rocky’s Replay knew it was more than just dropping tokens into arcade machines; it’s where many of us went to hang out. I’ve made some good friends from my Rocky’s excurrsions and I even had a more than few first(and often only) dates at Rocky’s.

I doubt if Rocky’s will have the same impact on me now as it did back then, but I am sure the next generation of social awkward youngsters will love it very much. Rocky’s was great because you could have beer while playing games, but they currently don’t have a liquor license at the new place. As a matter of fact, I really feel like that this was a guerilla re-opening. Rocky’s sent out an e-mail to their mailing list on Friday that it was going to open yesterday. So there was really little notification on what was actually happening. It also didn’t help that half of their demographic was out of town for the holidays. But I’m sure things will pick back up after Neew Year’s. It’s still pretty awesome that it’s back.

There are currently no new games since the place closed in Casselberry other than Guitar Hero Arcade but it felt good to play some After Burner and The King of Fighters XI again. Especially the latter, I haven’t played that since before the sequel came out and that was a mistake. Hopefully, some more games will be coming to Rocky’s in the future. I really don’t care if they are new; in fact, I would love for Rocky’s to have Hydro Thunder or Capcom vs SNK 2. That would be win.

Rocky’s Replay is now located at 5445 Lake Howell Rd, Winter Park, FL 32792 and they now have a website at http://www.rockysreplayarcade.com/ . My buddies and I will mostly likely hit arcade up about a couple times a month and maybe you’ll be there too!

The Adventures of Duane and BrandO: LP of Devastation

Kent Ward — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 16:33:55 +0000

The internet got something awesome for Christmas in the form of the long awaited release of The Adventures of Duane and BrandO’s LP of Devastation. The download is available through their website after a PayPal donation of $10. It’s totally worth it. Every old song has been remixed and sounds better. Not only that, a lot of their new stuff is great too!

The album features nerdcore renditions from games like Legend of Zelda, Megaman 2, Metroid, Castlevania, Punch-Out!, Ninja Gaiden, Final Fantasy, Battletoads, and more! I left my awesome new laptop running with the LP of Devastation playing and it was the best sleep I had in a very long time. I totally look forward to playing the LP of Devastation on my music playlist this Friday!

You can check out the album and more about The Adventures Of at http://www.the-adventures-of.com/.

Manly tears are being shed!

Kent Ward — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:29:46 +0000

If you don’t know why this teaser trailer would get me excited, then we must not be friends. But think of the possibilities. The publisher merger that brought together the makes of Ninja Gaiden and Dynasty Warriors together is now working on a Fist of the North Star game!? Today is a great day for mankind!