I’m starting to look over the upcoming fall anime series and show I’d most want to see is the one I don’t think will be (at least for right now) – namely, a fourth Lupin the Third series. Scamp, over at The Cart Driver, reminded me that it was announced that this fall’s Lupin project was going to be yet another TV special but I had already decided that the lack of publicity that would surround a new Lupin series meant we still weren’t getting a TV series. They could still surprise us and pull a Kyoto Animation but I’m not sure how fans would take watching Lupin commit the same crime 8 times over with the only difference between the eight being what Fujiko wears.

Which is disappointing but so is the thought that even if we would get a new Lupin TV series, the people creating it would be the same people who do such a sub-par job on the yearly TV specials/movies that we’ve been subjected too over the years. What the Lupin franchise really needs is a reboot and I feel the need to display my limited understanding of how anime operates so here’s my idea . Constructive dissenting opinions are always welcome .

For me, the first step in a Lupin reboot is picking the right animation studio to handle it; every studio has its strengths and weaknesses that would shade the resultant product. For example, a Bones Lupin would bring serious animation quality but they’d also pace the show poorly and make a mess of the ending. A Kyoto Animation Lupin would be even better animated but there’d be no fan service involved which for a womanizer like Lupin would lessen the characters in the anime. A ZEXCS Lupin would be completely average and forgettable. A Sunrise Lupin would somehow involve lots of mecha and pretty much be a train wreck with a slight chance of being awesome anyways. A Shaft Lupin would be an interesting visual exercise but it would only be 90% done when aired on TV and Lupin isn’t the type of character that I think they could get right. Let’s not even imagine what Studio Deen would do with Lupin. A Gainax Lupin would be awesome because they understand the importance of over-the-top absurdness needed for Lupin and there’d be great animation but Gainax seems to only really shine with original material with it’s poor history of adapting material vs. anime like Gurren Lagann, Panty and Stocking, FLCL, etc..

The choice is actually pretty clear, especially with their recent adaptation of Dororon Enma-kun Meeramera – it’s Brain’s Base. They can do a wide variety of series types from the slow, contemplative Natsume Yuujinchou to the bloody, action-packed Baccano to the fast-paced, gleefully fan servicey comedy of Dororon Enma-kun Meeramera. Their stuff always has high production values and picking Brain’s Base means getting their number one director – Takahiro Oomori – to direct.

As for the rest of the staff, I just don’t know enough to make a pick/educated guess at who’d best be writer, animation director, music, series composition, etc. so let’s move on to voice actors. I do think it’s time to get newer, younger seiyuu to voice the main characters in Lupin. For, one, because the current ones that have been doing the voices since the beginning will eventually reach a point where they can’t work anymore and,  two, because if Dr. Who can switch it’s main character every couple of years – anyone can – and, three, new actors would bring new quirks to their characters.

For the role of Lupin I can think of two choices: Daisuke Ono and Mamoru Miyano with Mamoru Miyano being my first choice. He’s currently voicing Okabe aka the Mad Scientist in Steins;Gate and he also recently voiced Takuto in Star Driver. Both of these roles showcase the energy, the Sauvé, and the range of emotions needed to bring Lupin to life. Daisuke Ono would give Lupin an interesting new twist and he’d be convincing as a lady’s magnet but he’d probably end up making Lupin too much of a smarmy basterd (think Itsuki from Haruhi).

Behind Lupin the most important vocal role of Lupin is arguably that of Zenigata, Lupin’s nemesis. Zenigata has to sound like a manly, tough-as-nails police detective, be able to do comedy, must have the ability to make his “LUPIN” scream memorable and needs to be loveable. Best known as voicing Zoro from One Piece, Date from Sengoku Basara, and Mugen from Samurai Champloo –  Kazuya Nakai would be my first choice. My second pick would be Katsuyuki Konishi whose best known as voicing Kamina from Gurren Lagann but also was a treat as the kendo teacher in Bamboo Blade.

Of nearly the same importance as Zenigata is Fujiko – female thief, sometimes ally and sometimes enemy of Lupin and the sole major female role in the franchise. For this role I had two names that instantly jumped out as possible choices. The first was Aya Hirano. I follow seiyuu news enough to know there’s a lot of drama surrounding Aya Hirano but she remains a stellar seiyuu. She’s best known for her role as Haruhi in Haruhi and also probably as Katja, the sadist ojousama in Seikon no Qwaser. She’d be perfect in the role of wrapping Lupin around her finger. The second name I thought of was Chiwa Saito. Her signature roles are Hitagi from Bakemonogatari and Homura from Puella Magi Madoka Magica but she’s done everything from Tama the talking cat from Kamichu to Stella from Arakawa Under the Bridge to Lavie from Last Exile. She really displays a wide range to her vocal talent and could infuse Fujiko with any emotion or wile she needs to the successful female thief.

The final two reoccurring roles, Jigen and Goemon, were tougher picks to nail down since in Jigen’s case I couldn’t get the English dubbed version of Jigen out of my head and Goemon just doesn’t talk enough. It was tough but I eventually decided on Tooru Ookawa as Jigen. He’s currently voicing the only redeeming feature of Sacred Seven – Hellbrick and has voiced Dr. Ozaki from Shiki, Gedächtnis from Fireball (Charming), Brian Roscoe from Gosick, and Arawn from Tears to Tiara. As for Goemon, I had to go with Keiji Fujiwara. He’s voiced the Kappa from Arakawa Under the Bridge, Ladd Russo from Baccano, Maes Hughes from FMA(B), and Jake Martinez from Tiger & Bunny.

Okay, we’ve got the animators, staff and vocal actors, now it’s time to look at the show itself.

I’m not actually familiar with the source manga so I can’t comment on how important it is to stick to source material but there are several things that one can infer upon watching a fair amount of the animated Lupin franchise. For starters, even though the newer Lupin specials appear to take place in modern times, it’s really just a whitewash over the older, original 60’s – 70’s time period. So the question is whether Lupin should be left in 1970’s or should to be fully brought forward to contemporary times.

With Dororon Enma-kun Meeramera Brain’s Base kept the show in the 1970’s and it worked for that anime. Then again, that show seems deeply intertwined with that time period and I’m not sure they could have brought the show forward and kept it’s comedy intact. For a Lupin reboot, keeping the show in the 1970’s would be a possibility as well. It’d have the nostalgia factor and it would easier to explain why Lupin never gets caught in the era before today’s omnipresent security/surveillance state but I think doing that would sell Lupin short. He’s Lupin, the international gentleman thief; I don’t think the Department of Homeland Security would scare him or stop him. So, I definitely think Lupin should fully update itself into contemporary times.

Another point that assuredly starts with the source material of Lupin is it’s fast-paced, over-the-top absurd action. This most definitely needs to be kept in a Lupin reboot since it’s a hallmark to the series but that’s not to say a new TV series should follow the caper-of-the-week setup that was the norm in the older series (at least from what I’ve seen). Assuming a reboot would be 26 episodes long (with future sequels if the sales warrant) the series should focus on maybe 5-8 distinct heists and introduce a wider variance between the arcs. Maybe they could develop a reoccurring criminal nemesis to Lupin or have the various organized crime groups that Lupin has stolen from in the past band together and hire an assassin to kill Lupin or maybe have Zenigata finally capture Lupin and Lupin is employed in cases like freeing hostages from a tin-pot dictator instead of being imprisoned or he can match wits with international secret organizations like Nazi groups still hidden in the jungles of South America or we could get some back-story and deeper characterization on the main characters. It probably would be a blast to see a flashback to Lupin’s first job. The resultant additions need to be carefully done so the overall show isn’t bogged down but it’s entirely possible to balance the two sides with the right group of staff.

I’d also keep the “spirit” of the show the same. I wouldn’t monkey with Lupin and do something drastic like dropping the age of the main characters and shifting the show into a high school setting. Nor would I sanitize the show; that means keeping the smoking, the gun play, and the fan service.

And the final piece to my Lupin reboot would have Lupin wear the red jacket – he just looks the best in red. Now if you’ll excuse me, all this talk of Lupin makes me want to rewatch some Lupin.

Filed under: anime, anime rants/views, general anime interst

可愛いすぎる!!!!

So I watched Redline last week, and it is one fine film, definitely worth checking out. But this post is specifically about one of the plot points in the movie: that protagonist JP and his partner Frisbee fix races for the mafia, which they do by having JP hang back until the last quarter of the race, suddenly take the lead, before ultimately losing the race. There will be some minor spoilers.

I got to thinking what kind of scheme the mafia had going that allowed them to profit from this situation, and what they needed JP to do. And it made me realize that, given JP’s capabilities, they could have fixed it a different way which would have allowed them to profit regardless of whether or not JP lost the race.

First of all, what was the mafia’s business model in Redline? At first, I thought it was by being the house and enticing people to make many losing bets on JP by making him look like a sure thing at the end of the race. But towards the end of the Yellowline race that started the movie, the mafia boss’s underling came to him and said that “all their positions on JP” had been “unloaded.” This implies that, in fact, the mafia no longer had any bets for or against JP at that point, so they had no reason to care whether or not JP won. It also implies that there is an after-market for these bets that they could sell already-made bets to.

So I’m not sure what scheme they had going on (if anyone is, please let me know in the comments!). But it seemed like they were pretty dependent on JP’s capabilities: JP needed to be someone capable of both (a) convincingly being an underdog for most of the race and (b) convincingly being the favorite for some of the last part of the race. And, of course, the mafia was quite insistent that (c) JP lose the race.

The fact that JP is conning the spectators twice, first by pretending to be worse than he is, then by pretending to be about to win before losing, should set off an alarm; you only need to con someone once in order to make profit. Indeed, if JP is capable of (a) and (b), there is a pretty safe way for the mafia to fix the race, one that doesn’t care if JP wins or loses.

So here’s the new scheme:

1. Keep JP at or close to last place for most of the race. Make bets for JP as late as possible while he’s still behind.
2. In the last segment of the race, have JP suddenly take the lead. As late as possible, take all those bets you bought for JP and re-sell them in the after-market.
3. Profit! It doesn’t matter who wins the race, because you’ve sold all your bets, and all you’re holding is cash.

How does this work? The key lies in the fact that the bookie must adjust the odds of a bet in a predictable way. And this affects the price at which one can sell bets in the after-market.

First, a quick review of how one accurately determines the value (expected value) of a bet. If you have a ticket representing a $1 bet on JP, its value V is determined pretty simply:

V = Y*Z

where:
Y = payout of the bet.
Z = probability that JP will win.

One thing bookies have to do is to try to keep that expected value V fixed, and under 1. Consistency is important so that you get an even distribution of bets for the racers and under 1 is important so that the house is likely to make a profit. Everyone knows this, so the bookie must follow this behavior so that there is no suspicion of foul play. As Z fluctuates throughout the race, the bookie must change Y in the opposite direction to keep V as close to constant as possible (of course, there is flexibility in real life, since no one truly knows the value of Z).

Here’s an example using dummy numbers. Let’s say the bookie wants to keep V at 0.9 throughout the race. During phase 1, when JP is far back in the pack, Z is very low, making Y very high. Let’s say that, when the mafia bets on JP, Z(1) = 1/10,000 – probability of JP winning is 1/10,000. Then the bookie sets Y(1) = 9,000 – the $1 ticket that the mafia bought will pay out $9,000 if JP should win.

But then enter phase 2: JP surges to take the lead. Now, Z(2) = 1/10. The bookie adjusts the odds accordingly so that Y(2) = 9. But the mafia has already bought a lot of bets that will pay out 9,000 instead of 9. So the mafia turns around to the bettors and offers to sell these bets to them, for a premium, of course. These bets are now worth Y(1) * Z(2) = 9,000 * 1/10 = $900.

If bettors were willing to purchase bets worth $0.90 for $1, then they should be willing to purchase a bet worth $900 for $1,000. Let’s say the mafia offers it to them for $900, to entice them with a better deal compared to what the house is offering. In fact, the expected value of the bet is 1 at the price of $900, so ignoring risk aversion, there is no reason NOT to take it (plus, gamblers tend not to be very risk averse people).

And then, the mafia walks away. It has “unloaded” all its “positions on JP” and is sitting on a pile of cash. It bought bets for $1 that it sold for $900, a nice 89,900% profit. Of course, these are dummy numbers, but as long as the bookie follows this predictable behavior, and as long as the after-market is liquid enough for the mafia to resell all their bets to bettors, the mafia will profit. Using more reasonable numbers, even if the jump between phases 1 and 2 of Z was from 1/50 to 1/10, and V was fixed at 0.5, the mafia would make a 150% profit.

This fix is almost exactly what insider trading is in the stock market. In this case, JP (or more specifically, the probability that JP will win) is the stock, and the non-public information is the knowledge that (as well as of when) JP’s probability of winning will skyrocket. It would be like an insider knowing that a company will soon be bought up by another company and buying lots of shares in that company’s stock before it happens.

Here, the mafia is in an even better situation than insiders, because they are actively manipulating the stock instead of just knowing how the stock will move. The incentives line up so that the mafia wants Z(1) to be as low as possible and Z(2) to be as high as possible. Both are accomplished by having the phases 1 and 2 end as late as possible in the race; as it gets closer to the finish, the odds tend to get more extreme: the probability that someone who’s behind will win gets lower, and the probability that someone who’s in the lead will win gets higher.

It will look awfully suspicious both to bettors and to law enforcement if you see one player buy and sell huge bets at such times. So the mafia would want to hire many bettors to do this, perhaps during slightly staggered times, and on much smaller scales as not to arouse suspicion. So the profit would be slightly variable, and the bettors would have to get their cut. It would also create more possible holes, more people who could talk to the police. Still, don’t you think the mafia boss would’ve preferred to take on that extra risk given to what happened?

Of course, if the mafia had done this and hadn’t cared about whether or not JP would win or lose, we wouldn’t have gotten the awesome moment when Frisbee was saved, nor would we have gotten the epic finish with the planted bomb. So all in all, I guess it was for the best.

Gotta say, pretty impressed with Tiger. He held himself pretty well against all the heroes. He was mostly running away, but that is also a strategy (though I doubt Tiger thought it was a strategy!). Seems like Kaede will play a role in bringing everyone’s memories back, she can copy NEXT powers, so when Mr. [...]

And they were never seen for the rest of the episode. lol I bet it got transmitted when Chinatsu raep kissed Akari!

She should have gotten that second book instead.

So, the big bad boss tells Dark Precure to get rid of the two current Precures who keep him from his ambitions. Then, as Dark Precure is about to give the finishing blow…he tells her to stop and orders her to return to their secret hideout. WTF man. Seriously, what the fuck?

The real reason I’m writing this post is so that I have an excuse to post a few pictures from the summer vacation I just got back from; but, I’m going to cover up the off-topic nature of this post by talking about a couple of thoughts I had about anime while on vacation and upon coming back.

Once again I spent my summer vacation relaxing in a beachfront home along the coast of Lake Erie. The location was so perfect, literally spitting distance from the shore, that we didn’t mind that the house lacked air-con.

Just about every house one can rent for vacation nowadays advertises that they have internet service but what they define as “internet service” is always an interesting surprise. This house had no landline phone or any sort of router that I could find but there was a wireless network my laptop found that I was able to connect too. I didn’t feel comfortable feeding this connection any of my various account names and passwords so I wasn’t able to blog or post comments but I did feel comfortable enough to fire Azureus up and continue grabbing anime that I wanted to watch. (I’m not sure what that says about me but I’m sure it means something.)

Very quickly I realized that it was going to be impossible keeping up with the 20 or so anime series I’m watching right now. There was important vacation related activities – like swimming at the beach, watching gorgeous sunsets, looking for beach glass, relaxing on the patio, marveling at all the stars that one can see outside of a city, etc – that limited the time that I was willing to sit down to watch anime. Also, the internet connection was junk; I felt that I time-traveled back to the dial-up days. It took forever for a single episode of anything to download.

This naturally forced me to decide which anime I’m watching right now was worth it and the ones I couldn’t live without was sometimes a surprise to me. The anime series continuing from spring that I had to keep up with were three: Steins;Gate, Nichijou, Tiger & Bunny. No surprises there – Steins;Gate is All-Time Top 10 bound if it doesn’t fumble the ending, Nichijou is the best comedy series by KyoAni ever, and Tiger & Bunny has finally gotten serious about showing it’s full potential and it’s been a nail-biting ride (I hope it continues). Hyouge Mono would probably be in this category but it’s been forever since a new episode has been subbed so I don’t know for sure. Of the continuing spring series there was two series that I found that I could wait till after coming back from vacation to watch – Ao no Exorcist and Hanasaku Iroha. I like both of these series a lot but if I’m being critical I know why neither anime got watched. The fight in episode 15 of Ao no Exorcist currently feels like the high point of the series with it treading water since then and I’m not sure if A-1 can make the ending top that episode. As an original work, there is no excuse for pacing issues but Hanasaku Iroha continues to stubbornly stick to being completely random even after 19 episodes and there’s really no compelling reason to why it needs to watched as soon as possible.

Of the new summer series only Natsume Yuujinchou Season 3, Mayo Chiki, and Dantalian no Shoka made the cut. No surprise with Natsume, it’s one of my favorite series of all-time and the location – near the lake with the sound of waves lapping the beach in the background – actually enhanced my viewing experience. Mayo Chiki continues to remain surprisingly engrossing and the best new comedy/fan service series this season. I’m starting to conclude that Dantalian no Shoka will not be among the best series this season but will continue to be an interesting anime to watch.

Two of the new summer series – Mawaru Penguindrum and Ikoku Meiro no Croisee – I dearly wanted to watch but the former didn’t air that week and my preferred subbers of the latter were slow (which was okay, I understand stuff happens but going through a Yune withdrawal is a painful experience). I initially didn’t think I’d miss either series as much as I did but I guess there’s truth in that saying about absence making the heart grow fonder.

This left a pile of new anime series that I didn’t watch that waited for my return home; including, R-15, Nekogami Yaoyorozu, Sacred Seven, Yuruyuri, Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi, Kamisama no Memo-chou, Blood-C, and Kamisama Dolls. There’s some good stuff on this pile but not good enough to get me to drop all the important vacation stuff I was doing. Speaking of which, while watching an awesome sunset, I got into a discussion about the best type of sunset. I argued that a sunset under partly cloudy conditions was the best type of sunset and clearly superior to a cloudless sunset but I was in the presence of someone who held the opposite. Neither of us was particularly serious but I thought this would make a good poll question that I could ask an impartial audience such as those reading this blog to answer. To help make the decision easier, I’ll include pictures I took of both types of sunsets while on vacation this year and you can vote below.

Cloudless Sunset

Partly Cloudy Sunset(s)

View This Poll

Thanks for the vote. The rest of the vacation was pretty typical vacation stuff. On the clear nights I saw a fair amount of Perseid meteors leading up to the peak night but I got clouded out on the peak night itself. There were a couple of storms that blew through which made for interesting viewing on how the coastline can quickly change and I even got to see several lightning strikes out over Lake Erie at night and was mesmerized at how bright and crisp they looked. However, the most exciting thing that happened during the vacation was when a P-51D Mustang buzzed the house.  In the pictures below you can see how the house sits in relation to the lake. The P-51 flew past at the same level as the first story windows and only about 75-100 feet from shore. It was really bookin’ it; a blink and I would have missed it. Thankfully I was looking outside when I first heard the engine growling towards me, though I almost missed it because I was looking up for it. I never thought I’d actually see a P-51 in-flight. Growing up I went through a phase where I learned everything I could about WWII and, even today, the P-51 has remained my favorite plane of the era.

Vacations always end and before I knew it, I was back home and all the anime that I left alone was staring back at me wanting to get watched now. I was tempted to drop many of the lower quality series because I have a hard enough time psyching myself to watch the weekly R-15 or Sacred Seven but for a couple of these series I had two episodes to get too and for the others I knew another episode was just a few days away at best. All without my normal trick of layering together the better series with the poorer series because I’d watched all the really good ones. In the end, I trudged through telling myself that if I got through these series I would get to rate them as low as they deserve. And I was left with a bigger appreciation of how seeking balance is sometimes the right thing to do.

In closing, I’m back home with my high-speed DSL connection and the light pollution that washes out most stars at night and a clear anime backlog.

Filed under: anime, general anime interst, meta/office keeping, off-topic, other wallpapers and pictures

You so cute! Also, do those furry thing shit out the Heart Seed!? Or does it come out of their tails!?

Awww man…both twins are dead… D: Didn’t expect this, you know, considering they were Saya’s friends and higher on the protection list. I thought Saya would go all out and save her friends, but she failed on both occasions. Also, she does forget the demon hunting she does, a combination of her father and Fumito [...]

Wow, that sweater really fitted her good~! If those things swayed in front of me, I too would reach and grab!

Just when Kyouma was one step away from undoing all the D-MAILs they’ve sent and saving Mayuri from her death…a difficult choice slams right into his face. Kyouma has to chose whether to stay in the Alpha world where Mayuri dies, or revert to the Beta world where Christina dies! Holy shit!!

No way in hell am I even going to try to pronounce that name…holy shit it’s so long!! This name gives Mika’s name a run for her money! lolol But in other news, Kyubey’s sleeping posture so sexy~ dat leg

Yes, it’s totally safe to follow a guy in a bear costume. Surely nothing bad will happen. Also, why the heck are the girls screaming their REAL names while in combat and why doesn’t the teacher realize it!? lol

All the heroes against Tiger and his unreliable power!? Shit just got more interesting!