Translating Girls Book Maker

 The Girls Book Maker roleplaying games are such an insane and dumb idea that they're endlessly fascinating. A visual novel can try and be as weird as possible, but it'll never top this. This is the weirdest visual novel idea I have ever seen.

The best way to describe the premise is Duck Pimples meets Coco meets Time Squad. The games take place in an otherworldly library that stores every classic story in history, but the characters are cheesecake versions of the authors and characters, they wear more outlandish outfits than what you'd find at the Met Gala, and they battle giant bookworms that look more like emoticons printed on balloons. And one character is a gender-flipped version of Arsène Lupin and has a voice like Kathy Ireland.

So they inspired me to do a series of experimental comics.

Gender-flipping is nothing new (just ask Hildy Johnson from 'The Front Page'). That's what these characters purely are. But in their particular context their roles recall anthropomorphic personifications, nymphs, muses, graces, caryatids, etc. 

In actual fact, they're more like sexualised magical girls and anime stereotypes: the cute megalomaniac, the nudist, the sexy nun, the princessy schoolgirl, the emotionless lolita, the bubbly idol type, the animal-eared woman and so on.

The character designs have to be seen to be believed. The characters look as if their designers tried to incorporate a number of elements and then lost their train of thought.

Translating these, like with many visual novels, can be summed up with Homer Simpson's comment about Ricky Gervais: "You take forever to say nothing!"

Why do I persist with it despite its elevator music?

What has gotten me obsessed with scenes from these games is that sometimes, they just barely pass the Bechdel test. The female characters spend almost as much time talking to each other about the existential nature of their being as they do about the male player character. It's pretentious fake feminism, but it keeps the viewer interested. A work can pass the Bechdel test and still be sexist. Case in point: An Officer and a Gentleman. 

And half the dialogue does revolve around the characters going out of their way to please the first man they see. Some of these book characters have wives in the original stories, which makes this seem like a lesbian conversion fantasy.

Some characters have dialogue but are never seen. Some don't even feature in the game story, like the aforementioned wives of some of the characters like Sneeze, Sancho Panza and Ganimard.

I have been obsessed with videos of these games because the third one in particular, a gacha game called 'The Story You Write', though a combination of insulting sexism and po-faced melodrama, goes the extra mile. I am fascinated with the way it takes gender flipping fictional characters to an extreme, despite the fact that some of the characters don't wear outfits that match their roles (why does their gender-swapped Gepetto look exactly like Harley Quinn?).

And the characterizations even of characters you don't see are alarming. You have Galahad making Monty Python jokes, Gawain watching football and drinking beer and Tristan gambling. At the very least, they're not treated like children like other characters in this franchise. The point is, the more you find out about this game, the weirder it gets, even when you know it has a Lancelot who gets naked and drives a car.

These visual novels are a paradox: a world with too many rules and plot devices, but also literary crossover chaos.

With everyone relying on AI now, seeing these characters as a product of human imagination is strangely fascinating.

The Lupin-Rohan connection

 

I first found out about the French Rohans through reading about Lucy Hay, who inspired Milady de Winter (who in turn inspired Lupin III's Fujiko Mine). The Rohans are an aristocratic family with estates across France, palaces in Austria and Czechia, and an arch in Malta. They were close to French royalty for generations.

 I thought that Ai Rohan, a relative of Lupin III, was given her name just because it vaguely sounded like "Lupin", but there is a bigger connection.

The Rohan coat of arms has lozenges representing chiastloites, andalusites distantly linked to the legendary Queen Lupa of Santiago de Compostela (said to be a female version of the god Lugh, who is somehow associated with a Greek wolf festival because he was reincarnated as a leprechaun. It's hard to explain).

What really links the names together is Maurice Leblanc's mentions of Louis René de Rohan, first in 'The Queen's Necklace', where we meet his fictional descendant, the Count of Dreux-Soubise, and then in 'The Countess of Cagliostro'. 

In one chapter, Josephine Balsamo reminds Arsène Lupin that Dreux-Soubise was his mother's distant cousin. That means he and his descendants are distantly related to the Rohan family, including other fictional members such as the Comte de Rochefort, and Princess Beatrix from 'The Woman Who Dared'.

It is worth researching this family because they have fascinating stories and could potentially inspire people to have adventures.

The Princess Who Laughed at a Man

 When Snow White first meets woman-hating Grumpy in the 1937 film, she playfully mimics him. He takes it better than most misogynistic men would today.

As the story goes on, Snow White continues to respond to Grumpy's rude comments with teasing and playing up her sweetness, even though she secretly wishes they would get along.

She is one of the few Disney Princesses to laugh at a man, and as far as I know the only one to get away with it.

I have always loved Snow White but have dismissed her in part as a damsel in distress. It is still true of her, but the more I think about her personality and relationships, the more I appreciate her.

In some ways, 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' was of its time, even slightly regressive. But compared to the social reality of the 1930s, it was also progressive.

1950s White Music

 I'm no musician, but I am fascinated by 1950s White music. There's something about it that evades definition. To call it "boring" would imply it is normal and the center of culture, when in fact it is eccentric. I would sum up the White chorus style as big band meets barbershop quartet. Aesthetically it shouldn't work but somehow does... for me, anyway. Anyone else would dislike it.

One of the most essentially 1950s groups is the Mellomen, who sang for Disney films during that time. You'll notice this style most in the 1952 short 'Trick or Treat'. The arrangement of voices in the song exemplifies the White style. Although they are an all-male group, they sometimes have female voices as well.

Mitch Miller's chorus, known for singing traditional songs, are also arranged in this particular way, especially when singing for Guy Mitchell. 

The same kind of orchestra is used for, for instance, Frank Sinatra's cover of 'Goodnight Irene', which was written as a blues song and performed by the likes of Lead Belly in the 1930s.

There is also Eddy Arnold's 1955 recording of 'The Cattle Call', which has a very typical 1950s White-style chorus.

It is bizarre and fascinating.

Other kinds of songs, like ones performed by the likes of Arthur Godfrey or Eileen Barton, are like hammy, music hall backwash. It's less of that pretty music and more all about the performance.

Top Roles of Eberhard Prüter

9. Mole

Somewhat miscast, but Prüter was very sweet as the mole in the 1993 dub of Disney's 'The Wind in the Willows'.

8. Ludwig von Drake

A fitting role for Prüter, Ludwig is fun and whimsical. Prüter brings a warmth to the character.

7. Dr. Donald Mallard (NCIS)

The Germans are not known for dubbing live action well, but Prüter put just as much effort into it as he was dubbing animation. He was perfectly cast in dubbing David McCallum as Ducky. He channeled McCallum while also putting his own distinctive mark on the role.

6. Dr. Hugo "Heuler" (Benjamin Blümchen)

An interesting, powerful performance from Prüter in a 'Benjamin Blümchen' radio play, an animal shelter manger, a man who could be timid and nervous one moment, then fastidious, then strangely confident and assertive the next. His performance is nuanced and understated. Is Hugo a good man? It's hard to tell.

5. Puffin (The Swan Princess)

Unlike many of Prüter's characters who are dry, dour, or deadpan, Puffin is hyperactive, perpetually optimistic and unconditionally sympathetic to Odette and her plight. Prüter brings a lot of energy to the character while making him lovable. Some of my favorite line readings of Prüter's have come from Puffin.

4. Klaus Schober (Polizeiruf 110, episode Kein Paradies für Elstern)

One of Prüter's early television appearances, this 'Polizeiruf 110' role showcased his ability to pull off this weird and wonderful role with incredible nuance. Prüter plays a department store boiler room worker who becomes something of a witness to a robbery. His role is funny, and yet somewhat disturbing, since Klaus seems to be hitting on the female officer investigating. Aged just 29 when playing the role, Prüter was a powerful screen presence. He had a delicate, ethereal face, with a lot going on behind the eyes, and the camera used it to its full potential. 

3. Zazu (The Lion King)

Prüter was cast in this role at the last minute replacing Uwe Paulsen, and to this day no one knows why. But Prüter was a good choice, giving an elegant and witty performance.

2. Squidward Tentacles (SpongeBob SquarePants)

Prüter was such a natural choice for the role and he made it entirely his own. His smoke-burnished voice characterized Squidward as an elderly gentleman, and made him sound distinguished, but there's some of that same sass in the voice as well. He was also energetic in the role and displayed an impressive range of emotions. Voice director Matthias Müntefehring even described Prüter as having the same cynical, sarcastic energy. Joachim Kaps is a fantastic replacement, but Prüter was Squidward.

1. Count Falko von Falkenstein (Bibi and Tina)

The greatest character from Prüter is Falko von Falkenstein, a character who can best be described as a nicer Cyril Sneer. Falko doesn't always understand others, and can be rude and temperamental, but is noble and principled. This was the role that launched Prüter's voice acting career and defined some of his greatest performances. Other interpretations of Falko make him cartoonier than the cartoon. Prüter humanized him.

On Tumblr Confession Blogs

I'm very picky about Tumblr confession blogs. They have to have specific requirements. The subject can't be too broad (like, say, Disney). It can't be confined to one setting and has to mean something personally. This is why I have only contributed to confession blogs on two subjects: Lupin III and Red Dwarf. 

Lupin III is a long-running anime franchise with many different TV series and interpretations of the characters. It is an adventure series that has numerous settings, has inspired moments of my life, and has consistently good art direction, great characters and is inspired in some episodes by the real world. I have had many different ideas about which opinions to give.

Red Dwarf ran for 32 years, has a good cast of characters, has a good theme song, makes fun of celebrity and politics, and has inspired some strong opinions from me.

But the thing is, I'm not the exact sort of person who would submit opinions to a confession blog on Tumblr. I'm 31 years old, half-British and jobless. This sort of blog is usually run by American twenty-somethings in college, usually female-presenting or assigned female at birth, who have a lot of time on their hands, and forget about these blogs they run as soon as they graduate and get jobs, which means you have to think quickly but carefully about what you want to say and dive in there as soon as possible.

Part of the enjoyment was that I didn't provide pictures for them. The people running the blogs had to find appropriate ones themselves.

How I Made 'We Don't Talk About Rohan'

 The idea started as just a personal animatic for myself. When Russia invaded Ukraine, I saw a post from a good friend saying "Anything you want to do, do it now." So at that moment I published the animatic to Vimeo. Then someone following my Vimeo account liked the video, so I decided to animate it.

The process took most of the year, and I finally finished it in September 2022, a day after Episode 97 of 'Lupin III Part 2' started streaming on HiDive. It was an exhaustic process, mainly because of the detail in the characters' clothes. By the end I felt like Jefferson Smith after the filibuster. It was a lot of work for a film that was just over a minute long.

The film was inspired by Episode 89 of Lupin III Part 2, and also on a personal experience I had with listening to music, in particular the final aria of 'The Valkyrie'.