My Profile

  • Rorschach
  • User Name: Rorschach
  • Member Since: Saturday, January 19, 2002, 11:05 PM
  • Donation Level: Total Leech (Donator)
  • Studio: Shoestring Films Inc.
  • Location: Mount Airy, NC, USA
  • Last Login: 2022-11-04 13:19:18
  • Forum Info: Profile        Posts (253)
  • Usefulness: 718.5 with 15 opinions
    [average 119.3 of 231894 opinions; standard deviation 432 ]
  • Profile: A long time has passed since I wrote my first profile, and many troublesome events have intervened as well. The rise of the internet has brought both great benefits and terrible problems, much as the rise of its predecessors, the printing press and the TV, did in their time. One of the internet's greatest benefits is that it has put all of human nature on display. One of its worst problems is that it has put all of human nature on display. Good and evil and everything in between are all just a few mouse clicks away.

    On the one hand, the internet strengthens my Christian faith immeasurably. On the other hand, it has given me a very cynical view of my fellow man. Original Sin, known as Christianity's most empirical doctrine, is more empirical than ever, and the doctrine of eternal damnation has never been more palatable to me: to those who ask me (seriously or not) how a loving God could put so many good people in Hell, I reply that you need only to look at those anonymous combatants in any flame war on the internet.

    Everyone from the guy who wants to see the Christians being thrown to the lions to the guy who wants to see the anti-Christians thrown to the Muslims is, in spite of all appearances, probably a very ordinary person. Any of them could probably be quite charming if you met them at a party. In the past, that charming part of them was all that anyone did see most of the time. Now the very masks that hide our faces have revealed us for what we all are under our more sociable appearances: monstrously, intolerably evil.

    If the soul is the self, that thing that the person really is under all of his masks, then Hell makes perfectly good sense: why would God want to spend an eternity with the likes of us? It's that whole forgiveness and redemption business of Christianity that's hard to understand. This current state of affairs is why I have chosen the alias and appearance of a character whose default hostility so closely matches my own personality, even as I continue to oppose his Nietzschean worldview. With the art of one culture, I continue to pay tribute to the art of another culture.

    In the meantime, I continue to appreciate anime intellectually even as the initial charm and novelty of its sophistication begins to wear off. What we Americans could do with our cartoons if we so wished, the Japanese have done. Now, even as America's animators begin to adopt some of the sophisticated methods and styles of Japan's anime, Japan has begun to adopt the methods and styles of America's own pulp culture. In practice, this means that we have more anime than ever available to us, but with less quality than before.

    All the same, anime continues to operate without some of the hindrances American animation faces: oddly enough, though Japan's culture is very materialistic, religious threads and themes continue to permeate anime. Even in the face of Japan's love affair with the novelty of high-tech gadgets and machinery, the culture remains very conservative politically and religiously. On the whole, considering the damage liberalization has done to our culture, I think it's to our benefit that we seem to be experiencing a cultural Japanese Invasion much like the British Invasion that influenced our parents' generation.

    For my part, looking back over what I have made and looking forward to what I am making, I have come to believe that those of us who live to be as old as our parents are now will one day be looking back on what we have made here on www.animemusicvideos.org as classical works. They are part of two artistic genres that I believe will one day come to be as respected as the pulp culture of the past: mass art and derivative art. What we produce here is art composed directly from other art, which we then reproduce almost infinitely at virtually no expense, thanks to the internet.

    Artistically speaking, in other words, we makers of anime music videos are living in a golden age. We had best enjoy it while we can; already, the forces of mediocrity that consumed previous genres are working to overwhelm our own. When they finally do, what we are making now will be on display in the museums of the future, and some of us will be the curators giving the next generation's audience a guided tour. The thought of that is enough to give even the spine of this cynical Christian a pleasant shiver.

global average

  • Count231894
  • Originality8.47
  • Visual Quality8.37
  • Audio9.00
  • Action Sync8.45
  • Lip Sync8.24
  • Special Effects8.49
  • Effort8.60
  • Re-view-ability7.92
  • Overall8.43

average given

  • Count15
  • Originality8.27
  • Visual Quality7.20
  • Audio8.60
  • Action Sync8.80
  • Lip Sync9.50
  • Special Effects8.00
  • Effort8.20
  • Re-view-ability7.13
  • Overall7.80

average received

  • Count27
  • Originality9.11
  • Visual Quality7.70
  • Audio8.48
  • Action Sync8.11
  • Lip Sync
  • Special Effects6.83
  • Effort8.59
  • Re-view-ability7.78
  • Overall8.56

10 FAVORITE ANIME

1.
Cowboy Bebop
2.
Princess Mononoke
3.
Trigun
4.
Hana Yori Dango
5.
Love Hina (TV)
6.
Child's Toy (Kodomo no Omocha / Kodocha)
7.
Kiki's Delivery Service
8.
Ceres, Celestial Legend (Ayashi no Ceres)
9.
Love Hina - Again (OVA)
10.
Sailor Moon

My Videos (12)

  • Love Flaming Through Time (2010-07-29)
    [hits: 666][opinions: 1]
    • Tryanglz Burnin' In The Third Degree
    • Fire Tripper
    • Action
    • Drama
    • Other
    • Romance
    • Sentimental
    • Serious
    • Direct
    • Local
  • Impossible Request (2009-10-26)
    [hits: 890][opinions: 0]
    • Alison Krauss Forget About It
    • Strawberry Eggs (I My Me!)
    • Drama
    • Romance
    • Serious
    • Direct
    • Local
  • You'll Leave Me (2008-06-24)
    [hits: 1588][opinions: 1]
    • Lisa Loeb Waiting For Wednesday
    • Koi Kaze
    • Drama
    • Horror
    • Romance
    • Serious
    • Direct
    • Local
  • Come Home (2006-07-14)
    [hits: 1307][opinions: 1]
    • Michael W. Smith I'll Lead You Home
    • Aishiteruze baby
    • Drama
    • Romance
    • Sentimental
    • Serious
    • Direct
    • Local
  • Lament for the Tennyo (2004-04-24)
    [hits: 1985][opinions: 3]
    • Slaughter Fly to the Angels
    • Ceres, Celestial Legend (Ayashi no Ceres)
    • Drama
    • Horror
    • Serious
    • Local
  • Through A Glass Darkly (2004-03-04)
    [hits: 1214][opinions: 1]
    • Larry Fast Prairie Lights
    • Night on the Galactic Railroad
    • Drama
    • Instrumental
    • Serious
    • Direct
    • Local
  • Modest Maiku (2003-12-01)
    [hits: 2965][opinions: 1]
    • Robert Palmer I Didn't Mean To Turn You On
    • Please Twins! (TV)
    • Comedy
    • Fun
    • Romance
    • Local
  • Light And Life, Death And Darkness (2003-10-02)
    [hits: 1967][opinions: 3]
    • Robert Miles Princess of Light
    • Boogiepop Phantom
    • Drama
    • Horror
    • Serious
    • Local
  • Den of Robbers (2003-07-05)
    [hits: 2050][opinions: 3]
    • Prince Thieves In The Temple
    • Scryed
    • Action
    • Drama
    • Horror
    • Serious
    • Local
  • Teitai (2003-03-30)
    [hits: 3341][opinions: 3]
    • Jewel Standing Still
    • Please Teacher (TV)
    • Romance
    • Serious
    • Local
  • The Marination Of Keitaro Overture (2002-10-14)
    [hits: 3149][opinions: 4]
    • Mozart The Marriage Of Figaro Overture
    • Love Hina (TV)
    • Love Hina - Again (OVA)
    • Love Hina - Christmas Special
    • Love Hina - Spring Special
    • Action
    • Comedy
    • Fun
    • Romance
    • Local
  • Blizzard Rescue Love (2002-01-20)
    [hits: 5013][opinions: 3]
    • Nightnoise Snow Is Lightly Falling
    • Hana Yori Dango
    • Drama
    • Romance
    • Local