Satoshi Kon was an anime director. His movies include Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers, and Paprika. He also directed the TV show Paranoia Agent. He’s the kind of person I would call brilliant and my father would call a presumable drug addict. His work dealt a lot with the human mind and how it shapes the world around us, and he did a lot of amazing experimentation with animation to portray this.

My favorite movie I’ve seen of his is Paprika, which is one of my all-time favorite films. If I were to describe the premise, it may sound startlingly similar to inception: Scientists have created devices that allow them to enter other peoples’ dreams. Inception’s release actually made me think a lot about Paprika lately, which made Kon’s death hit extra hard. But the two are very different films, and Paprika really needs to be seen to be understood. Allow me to point you to the Opening Sequence as a taster.

I can’t claim to be the most devoted Satoshi Kon fan. I’ve never seen Perfect Blue, and I just now obtained Tokyo Godfathers. But even so, his death felt surprisingly like a punch in the gut. It’s one of those things that makes me look at my own work (a page of which I interrupted to write this blog post) and think “why the hell aren’t you making something more intelligent and amazing than this?” The fact is that now isn’t the time; I’m not at a skill level in my writing or art that I could make something like that even if I wanted to. But I’ve got time, and it’s something I’ll be working towards.

I’m trying to keep this blog post pithy and avoid rambling, so I’ll end it with this:
I’m not a religious person, so this isn’t a “RIP Satoshi Kon” message. He’s already executing on that objective, I’m sure.
I’d say this is more of a recommendation to watch some of his stuff, even if you aren’t a fan of anime in general. He really did have a unique voice and style. It’s possible that there will still be one more film of his, but there’s no telling what state the movie’s in until they make an announcement. One can hope.

SK is the first “celebrity” I’ve ever cried at the death of, but I don’t think I cried out of pity for him as much as selfish frustration. He was only 47 years old. We all got short changed.

And I told myself I’d never draw any more nets after the last time. Such a hassle.

So I updated the banner! I wanted a little something to bring in KB’s return with 42 added to the team. Plus now Ben isn’t making that super-OOC happy face. Like that ever happens! (Well technically it did happen but still

ALSO! Comicpress’s Frumph taught me how to do a little something with the archives. I’d suggest clicking on any of the track covers in the archive and seeing what happens. ‘Tis the height of convenience!

Agghhh gotta go to a dentist appointment that’ll take me until noon. But as soon as I get back I’ll finish the bottom half! It’s mostly done there’s just one panel that’s being a big ol’ poopoo face as it were. But I wanted to go ahead and put this up just to show I’m not skipping today or anything!

You’d think my crazy guilt problems whenever I’m late like this would help me work ahead, but somehow I always get caught up doing other things figuring I can finish the page the day before it’s due. But I GOTTA stop staying up ’til 5-8am~ The whole Scholastic pitch stress uncertainty thing isn’t helping much either XD
Hmm maybe I shoulda had a week break. Oh welll back to work. Apologies as always ;;