Anime Hardsuits For Sale

Fuzzy_Damnit! pointed us at a site where a guy has built authentic looking Anime Hardsuits that he's selling on eBay. Features a quite impressive Nene (from Bubblegum Crisis). No. It doesn't fly. Or have weapons. You might still be able to ride a motorcycle.

Comments

on that note.. (Daemonette costume)

[Ceren]

On that note, I've been considering selling the second FreeBSD Daemon-girl outfit, to buy a new one. Upgrading, as it were. ;)

I'll probably sell it on Ebay, with a starting price of what was originally paid for it ($500). The goal is to end up with a comparable (or better!) daemonette outfit, maybe even in time for Linuxworld 2001 NYC....

It's solid red garment quality latex, made by A woman named Molly (who ran So Hip It Hurts in SF) and sold large amounts of quality latex through Stormy Leather. The two pieces are both custom made from the same batch, and in size small; tshirt and leggings. The shine has partially worn off from the shirt (but still mostly there on the leggings) and it requires several minutes of polishing before it's ready to wear out onto the floor of the convention. This is mainly why I'm selling it. I really don't have this kind of time in the mornings. I'm a reeally late riser. And conventions never seem to happen on 36-hour day cycles. :P

I'm 5"5", anywhere from 120 to 130, so that should give you an idea of who this costume would fit.

Watch for this auction between now and early January.

A friend was good enough to toss a few pics up for me -
Credit goes to whoever took the lwce pictures at drunkmonkey.org, and MSK who took the staged pictures. I'm sure I don't need to mention that the copyrights belong to the original photographers.... :)

http://www.freebsd.org/~wpaul/daemonette

-Ceren E.
FreeBSD's "Strange Attractor."
ceren@removethispinkmeat.magnesium.net

Re:Anime and the loss of Cultural Identity

[Tofuhead]

I have been interested in Saturday morning cartoons from an artistic perspective for quite some time, and it has always seemed to me that one of their central themes is the lack of identity of a culture that started out as an British colony and has gone on to being the world's truly foremost modern international capitalist nation in a little over 200 years.

Scooby Doo Halloween costumes are another expression of the angst that this lack of cultural identity has caused, as the old certainties of British rule were ripped away and replaced by the values of Democracy. The Victorian ethos and clothing of the British have been replaced by the tie-dyed shirts and communist values of the slashdot hippie. These Scooby Doo Halloween costumes, and indeed the entire Saturday morning cartoon movement, are an unconscious desire to return to the oppressive certainties of old Colonial America, IMHO.

Re:Anime and the loss of Cultural Identity

[Cryptnotic]

Your use of the phrase "violent certainties of old Japan" betrays your pretense of understanding. By all historical accounts, life in old Japan was anything but certain. And most people were of course, not Samurai, but serfs. No one with any brains would want to go back to the way things were. Their view of the past is a similar fantasy to Americans' view of their founding fathers.

If anything, popular culture in Japan reflects the dualism of Japanese modern society. On one hand, there is a reverence for the past and the cultural heritage of Japan. On the other, there is the need to be a part of the modern international community. Japan handles this duality marvelously. Women in kimono ride the subway alongside salarymen and office ladies. Neighborhood shrines sit next door to high rise office buildings. If you are a wealthy Japanese man, you can still buy the virginity of the maiko (women who will become geisha). They call this tradition "mizu ageru" by the way.

Also, you can make as many analyses of the unconscious desires of the Japanese as you want, but they are fundamentally unprovable. What is provable is that there is a growing disinterest among Japanese young people in the traditional Japanese cultural properties. Young Japanese are more interested in learning English than they are in learning to read classical japanese literature. They are more interested in listening to popular music than they are in studying classical Japanese instruments. They are more interested in drawing in popular styles like manga than they are in learning Japanese calligraphy.

So anyway, there isn't any angst over loss of culture among most young people. And anime isn't made for the older generations in general. So I can't really tell what you were getting at besides an attempt to say something profound.

Cryptnotic

Not just 'a guy'

[Kuroyi]

It's not just 'a guy' auctioning these, it's Robert Woodhead of AnimEigo. Bubblegum Crisis is one of their licenses and it looks like these used to be used for promotion at Cons. Bubblegum Crisis was also their first DVD release (unfortunately sublicensed to Multimedia 2000, but the rerelease is pretty good by all accounts). He sent an email to the AnimEigo-DVD list about this Dec 7.

Re:Anime and the loss of Cultural Identity

[SPrintF]

Anime is a medium, not a genre. Saying that "the entire Anime movement" (whatever *that* is) is driven by a desire to return to pre-Restoration feudalism is like saying that all American movies are Westerns. Certainly true in some cases; completely off the mark in others:

Serial Experiments Lain is a meditation on the nature of reality and godhood.

Cowboy Bebop is a noir-ish melodrama, akin to Hong Kong action theater.

Saber Marionette J is a sly reconsideration of the role of women in traditional Japanese society.

Oh My Goddess! is straight romantic comedy.

Princess Mononoke, for all that it's set during Japan's feudal era, is an essay on the inevitably uneasy relationship between Man and Nature.

The assertion that (salaryman == samurai), though widely believed in the West, is a shallow interpretation of a deep and complex culture. Good anime reflects many facets of that culture.