#Chiaki konaka

[acquired-stardust]

Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 AIC 1998

[nnaalluuaa]

Malice@Doll (2001) Creature Design & Concept Art

Artist: Yasuhiro Moriki

[moonlightbeamu]

This artwork has been on Chiaki Konaka's blog for over 20 years now. Presumably it was an ad for Digimon Tamers in Japan, but I wasn't able to find any information on it. It's possible that it was part of the pre-release press kits or something like that.

[2002lust]

Malice@Doll Concept Art

Models by Kaname Aoki at Visual Science Laboratory, 1999

[magicaldogtoto]

Decided to re-watch Serial Experiments Lain for the first time since 2007 (when I was fourteen), and thought of something adjacent to it.

It's a known fact that Code Lyoko co-creator Thomas Romain cites Lain as a major influence on CL, along with The Matrix. While that is a nice bit of cred for someone into anime, any truly Lain-inspired elements in the show were mostly taken out during production. Mostly this was done to make the show less dark (though it still has its moments...). I've read somewhere that Aelita may have been inspired by Lain, but I can't find any actual source for that. It would make sense, though--both have a connection to a digital world.

But this shot of Lain's neighborhood overrun with shadows marked with red splotches (I believe to represent the Wired) made me think... could these visuals have inspired Lyoko's own XANA? Even better, go back and watch the Garage Kids pilot for Lyoko, and you'll see that the main antagonist materializes in the real world as ominous, shadowy phantoms that leak out of computer screens.

[thetremblingroofbeam]

[gaynaxing]

WIRED

WEIRD

From the artbook "Visual Experiments Lain".

[dg3zero]

[occvltswim]

[transangledlozengeggbutt]

[roskirambles]

Horror Movie of the Day: Marebito (2004)

"They didn't see something that terrified them. They saw something because they were terrified. I want to feel that fear, to see what they did."

Takuyoshi Masuoka is a freelance cameraman who never goes out without a camera. He records everything, and has become obsessed with fear after witnessing ||the suicide of an old man|| in the train station. Descending into the labrynth of tunnels beneath the city, he finds what look to be people, maybe ghosts, who are deeply afraid and walk like animals. And after being warned about the Deros(named after the writings of Richard Sharpe Shaver) by one homeless man, he sees what looks to definitely be a ghost guide him to a cave, where a naked woman lies. One who eats blood, and after being rescued the girl(now referred as "F") needs food which Masuoka will provide.

Directed by Takashi Shimizu and co-written by Chiaki Konaka, if you’re familiar with the later’s work (Serial Experiments Lain, Digimon Tamers, Texhnolyze) you know you’re in for a trip. And you’re still not prepared: the movie is a relentless bombardment of mind-screwing elements involving conspiracy theories, violent murders and mentally disturbed people, all packaged in the obsession of one man who is glued to a camera yet mostly shot with verisimilitude until you don’t know if the man is just crazy or he’s really digging himself deep both literally and metaphorically into a metaphysical rabbithole.

Whatever the case may be, you're just stuck with either someone who is potentially abusive in his madness or that has somehow uncovered a dark reality of how the world actually works which unsurprisingly is not a placid feeling at all. It's obsession with cameras and surveillelance, with trying to make sense out of things through a lens that isn't our own eyes is still resounding, but it's such a deliberately confusing and revolting watch you're decidedly going out with more questions than answers.

[acquired-stardust]

Serial Experiments Lain Triangle Staff 1998

[countzeroor]

Anime Review - Texhnolyze

So, the second of the anime series on my New Year’s Resolution list that I’m done with is one I’m dropping – Texhnolyze. I did give it a reasonable try – getting about a cour through the series before I had enough, and because I had the show on my resolution list, I do feel it’s important to talk about why this series failed for me when two other Chiaki Konaka projects – Serial Experiments Lain…

[filmkatt]

Malice@Doll (2001)

Keitaro Motonaga

[burntramennoodles]

Lain dissociating with her off-brand Garfy (he's in agony cause he knows he's a fake)

[magicaldogtoto]

Once you learn that Chiaki Konaka was the main writer of Ultraman Gaia, it’s hard not to notice how the Radical Destruction Bringer is basically a prototype for the D-Reaper in Digimon Tamers.

Aside from the fact that the Destruction Bringer is also an entity that wants to wipe out humanity by sending waves of monsters, the explanation the Shinigami gives—that humans have over-evolved—is basically a precedent for the D-Reaper’s reasoning.